why do the stars twinkle?

Answer 1

Stars twinkle because moving air in the atmosphere distorts the light waves coming from them. Because the stars are so far away they appear as dim, point sources of light. Brighter, larger sources of light such as the planets or the moon are also affected by this phenomenon, but it is less noticable because they are so much brighter and apparently so much larger.
The effect is called "scintillation".

Answer 2

Stars twinkle because of tricks of light in the atmosphere. Imagine a campfire producing lots of smoke. When you look through the smoke, the image is not as clear on the other side. Well, all the air and other gases in the atmosphere interfere with the viewing of the star, causing it to "twinkle".

Answer 3

Stars appear to twinkle because of density fluctuations in our atmosphere. As the beam of light travels from the star to your eye, it passes through the atmosphere of the earth. It is important to understand that the atmosphere is not exactly uniform everywhere. Due to temperature differences and random fluctuations some regions of air will be more or less dense than others. The size of these regions may be as large or a hurricane or as small as some microscopic area (however, in general the smaller the region the less time it will be stable). Because the density of air affects its refractive index, these pockets will effectively act as lenses, slightly bending the light in different directions. Because these 'lenses' are in constant flux, moving and changing size continuosly, the direction in which the light is bent is also changing constantly. The result of this is the twinkling effect that you see. Planets do not twinkle as significantly because they are closer, and thus the 'size' of the light beam is larger causing it to be less susceptible to small-scale distortions in its path.

Answer 4

stars twinkle bec. of dust particles in the air that block its light but actually it doesnt twinkle it seems only that it twinkle

Answer 5

Atmospheric distortions cause it. That's why they sent up the Hubble space telescope, to avoid the twinkling effect which blurs long-exposure photographs from ground-based telescopes.

Answer 6

Light passing through our atmosphere is distorted. Its scattered off small dust particles which are moving in winds high above the ground.

Answer 7

because of dust particles in the air. Or the star your watching is drastically changing

Answer 8

i rarely ever see stars. I live in a city drenched with background lighting. Such a shame, i never got to use my telescope

Answer 9

Effects of our atmosphere. That is why it is convenient to put satellites in space.

Answer 10

Because they are happy to be able to break through the pollution up there.