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2007-03-21 11:57:46 · 9 answers · asked by STORMY K 3 in Science & Mathematics Astronomy & Space

9 answers

yeah whatever they all said. When light leaves a star, it takes a few years for the closest stars' light to reach us, and thousands of years for the further stars to reach us . And in those thousands of years for the furthest stars , the light passes through the interstellar medium which distorts the light before it reaches us. But look at a planet. It does not twinkle.

2007-03-21 21:10:04 · answer #1 · answered by paulbritmolly 4 · 0 0

Hello. The "twinkle" stars make sometimes could be caused by something moving in the way of the light. Since we see in a sense "past light" from stars it could be like an eclipse of a sun from far away. It could also be a star's light fluctuating as if it is going out. Hope I could help. Bye.

2007-03-21 19:13:34 · answer #2 · answered by mind-scaper 4 · 0 0

A star is a point of light and any variations in the density of the atmosphere distorts the light causing it to fluctuate and twinkle.
A planet presents a disc so density fluctuations only affect part of the disc and is not noticeable.

2007-03-21 19:07:39 · answer #3 · answered by Billy Butthead 7 · 0 0

The light from stars passes through our atmoshpere which is constantly moving and swirling. So the light is bend slightly in different directions (like light bending in glass or water). This causes our eyes to sense movement and variations in brightness of stars!

This is one of the reasons the Hubble telescope is so successful: in space, there is no atmosphere to make the stars twinkle, allowing much better images to be taken!

2007-03-21 19:06:12 · answer #4 · answered by youshouldneverthrowacat 2 · 1 0

Actually it is interstellar gas. The closest star is about 3 light years away. The earth is nine light minutes from the sun, so the nearest star is very far away. Others are even farther. There are gas clouds in the interstellar medium, and even the vacuum of space has some matter. Over trillions of miles that gas medium causes the stars to twinkle.

j

2007-03-21 19:03:49 · answer #5 · answered by Jerry H 2 · 0 0

When the light from the stars passes through our atmosphere, diffenent frequencies of light bend (or refract) at different rates based on their frequency.

(This is why a prism breaks 'white' light into it's component colors.)

The different colors are bent differently, and are slightly 'off' when you look at them.

The atmosphere is also not really stable, so the diffraction varies as the light passes thru the instabilities in the air, leading to additional visual fluctuations.

Hence the 'twinkling'.

Hope this helps!

2007-03-21 19:03:43 · answer #6 · answered by edward_otto@sbcglobal.net 5 · 1 0

Variations in the Earth's atmosphere, distorting the starlight.

2007-03-21 19:00:45 · answer #7 · answered by quantumclaustrophobe 7 · 1 0

Atmospheric distortion.

2007-03-21 20:32:06 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

the effect of the earth's atmosphere

2007-03-21 20:57:15 · answer #9 · answered by StarLyssStar* 2 · 0 0

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