2007-01-19 08:54:20 · 16 answers · asked by i_love_fawlty_towers 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Planets can twinkle, but because stars present a smaller apparent disk than planets, they twinkle more. To your eye they both just look like points of light. In a telescope you can see the disk of a planet, but even the closest star still just looks like a point of light. The larger size of the apparent disk of the planet is enough to smooth out the twinkling effect to some extent.
2007-01-19 09:00:33 · answer #1 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Imagine a triangle with one point at the earth, at your eye, and the other two points on opposite sides of the object you're looking at. The side opposite your the vertex located at your eye has a relative width. That relative width determines how much light your eye receives from the object, or reflected off the object. The earth's atmosphere might cause the light to disappear for a moment, causing the object to 'twinkle.' Planets have a larger width since they're closer, so it's much less likely they'll have this twinkle.
2007-01-19 17:03:45 · answer #2 · answered by bequalming 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Planets have a larger apparant size than stars (though they still appear too small for our unaided eyes to see anything more than a point of light). Twinkling is caused by atmospheric refraction, but since planets appear larger (since they are so much closer to us) they don't twinkle as much. Planets *can* twinkle though if the atmosphere is sufficiently turbulent at the time, but it takes a lot more turbulence to make them twinkle than it does for the stars.
2007-01-19 16:59:33 · answer #3 · answered by Arkalius 5 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Stars are a point of light, planets have width.
The particles of light from stars therefore have a single path through the atmosphere so will be influenced greatly by refraction and atmospheric effects. We observe this as twinkling.
Because the planets are discernible as a disc, there will be very many paths for the light through the atmosphere. These all add together to counteract the effects of the single paths mentioned above.
I hope that makes sense.
2007-01-20 15:42:55 · answer #4 · answered by efes_haze 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because stars have different kinds of elements and compounds that makes it luminous while planets don't. Only light from another star can make a planet twinkle. And also planets are not meant to be lightened because if it was. we would have died because of intense heat.
2007-01-23 03:40:04 · answer #5 · answered by michael aguila 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They don't actually twinkle - it is the Earth's atmosphere that gives the illusion of twinkling!
2007-01-19 16:58:48 · answer #6 · answered by jamand 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They do, if you live in the northern hemispere, in the GMT time zone look out to the night sky to the south and try find the brightest star you see. This is in fact Venus
2007-01-22 20:09:37 · answer #7 · answered by manc1999 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because the planets are so much closer than the stars (whose distance from us is measured in "light years") there's less distance between us and them and therefore less distortion, whatever its source.
2007-01-19 17:05:21 · answer #8 · answered by texasjewboy12 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
anything that is visible through our atmosphere appears to twinkle due to turbulence in the atmosphere.
see here:
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=114
or here:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000725.html
or here:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/stars/twinkle.shtml
2007-01-19 17:00:39 · answer #9 · answered by Act D 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the stars twinkle because the plantets are spinning round them.
Stars are suns of other solar systems
2007-01-19 17:02:50 · answer #10 · answered by Scarlet 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋