Why do stars twinkle?
401971
when the light from the stars enter the earth's atmosphere, the light wave bends and refracted until it reach our eyes. So because it is refracted, when we look at it, it seems to be twinkling.
585811
This question may be interpreted in two ways.  First, why is the sky not blue at night?  The answer for that is that the sky appears blue during the day because it scatters high energy sunlight.  The atmosphere scatters high energy starlight as well, but there isn't enough of that to make the sky appear blue.\n\nThe other interpretation is why is the sky not totally lit by stars?  That is actually a very important question that was pondered by famous astronomers.  It is called the Dark Night Sky Paradox, or Olbers' Paradox, and was contemplated by such notables as Halley and Kepler as well as the eponymous Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers.  If the universe is of infinite age (as was once assumed) and static, and the stars have had eternity to shine, shouldn't the sky be lit?  \n\nSome people hypothesized that the stars did not appear randomly in all directions.  (So the stars are arranged in straight lines with the Earth at the center so that starlight piles into intervening stars, and there are empty gaps?  Even before Hubble proved that "dark sky" is teeming with distant galaxies, that sounded stupid.)  Others said that dust in the way absorbed starlight.  But after an eternity of absorbing starlight, wouldn't the dust glow as well, and light up the night sky?\n\nThe fact that space is dark turns out to be proof in part that the Universe is not infinite, eternal, and static.  That in fact it had a beginning point in time and space and the Universe is changing.
1095018
Not a simple question, but  this is two main reasons.\n\n1) Brightness of the Star Play a part.   Assume uniform Atmosphere.\n\n2) The Atmosphere also another part.  Assume stars of the same brightness.\n\n1)  Brightness of the Star Play a part.\nBrighter the Star, less likely the twinkle.   Look at the Moon, does it go Bink Bink?  Too Bright.\n\nBut Dimer stars, under the same Atmospheric conditions, may Bink.\n\n2) The Atmosphere also another part.\nThe Atmosphere is not uniform, look at the sky during the day, sometime, it clear blue,  and other time clouds mass abound.\n\nThe Atmosphere is like a thin soup, with some sliver of bread in it,.  using that example, when the Stars of the same brightness is in the Sky,  imagine when a sliver of bread blocks lightly one of the stars, thus one Bink, and another don't.\n\nIt Real life, Stars are not of the same brightness, and the Atmosphere is not always uniform.  making the issue complex.
346966
Greetings,\n\nIt was probably Sirius the Dog Star.  One of the closer stars to us and when it twinkles it appears red, blue, green, and is really big for a star.\n\nIt was NOT a planet, as planets don't twinkle.  Jupiter is bright, but it's not very high up in the sky at 8:00 pm.  Venus is currently only up in the morning.  Saturn is a dim yellowish star in Gemini.  Mars is a dim orange star between Taurus and the Pleides.\n\nSo to sum up, it was most likely Sirius.\n\nYou can use the link provided for a interactive star chart that is easy to read and use.  Simply plug in your city and state and the time of day/night you want to see and most of the visible stars will show up along with the planets, comets, and a few other deep space objects.\n\n-matt
41532
the sun is a star because it is. There are other stars in the universe that have planets revolving around them. All the stars you see in the sky are like the Sun once you get close enough. From those stars, our Sun just looks like another star in the sky.
231023
This is caused by thermic convection of the air. In the deserts you normally have high differences in temperature between day and night, so hot air is rising rapidly while cold air is moving downwards after sunset. This different densities in the air makes the light bend and the stars seems as if they are dancing, just as if you were looking through an irregular glass. \nIt's a bad night for astronomers.
905280
Light 'dimming' is due to a decrease in the intensity of the light that reaches your eyes. This is different from the waves loosing energy or becoming 'shorter.'\n\nThink of it this way... When you shoot a shotgun, the pellets are very dense, grouped closely together, when the exit the barrel. As they get farther away from the barrel, they get farther away from each other. This is kind of what happens with a decrease in intensity.\n\nHere's another way, one that is more applicable to your question. Think of the surface of a star. It is, roughly, a sphere. To make this simpler, lets just think of the star as a circle. (It may help to draw this out as I'm explaining it) Let's assume that all of the light that is emitted comes straight out of the surface. A way to picture this is to draw straight lines from the center of the circle outwards. Do this for a few lines that start out very close together and are almost going in the same direction. Extend these lines out very far from the center. Do you see how, as they get farther from the center, they get farther away from each other?\n\nYou can also draw a tiny dot some distance away from the circle. This can represent the earth. How many lines that initially start out close together actually intersect this dot? Now can you see why the light gets dimmer? It is because only a small fraction of the light that is sent in our direction actually reaches us.\n\nWhile it is true that light waves do extend forever, they do not exist everywhere. To describe where something is located, you can only talk about how probable it is to be located somewhere. This is a consequence of the Uncertainty Principle.\n\nIf you want to know more, I suggest looking at wikipedia or googling Schroedinger's Equation. There are probably other people who can explain it far better than I could.
23967
Stars are massive, glowing balls of hot gases, mostly hydrogen and helium. Some stars are extremely hot, while others are cooler. You can tell by the color of light that the stars give off. If you look at the coals in a charcoal grill, you know that the red glowing coals are cooler than the white hot ones. The same is true for stars. A blue or white star is hotter than a yellow star, which is hotter than a red star. Temperature of stars range in the high hundreds to thousands degrees F. So to touch the stars that are in the sky is almost impossible, as your body would burn due to high temperatures surrounding them.
658402
stars do not fallow the north star but seem to rotate around it because the north star is directly north and as we rotate the stars appear to move around the north star progressively through the night.
642135
stars have a life span as well, they are born and they die. but these processes could take  millions and even billions of years to happen.they are also very very far away from us.\non a cloudless and moonless night, you may see that the sky is full of them. on a bright moonlight they seem to be less numerous. but on any given time there is about 4,000+ of them that can be seen by the naked eye. these is still true as it was since ancient times. the fact that you seem to see a lesser number of them may be due to the effects of bright city lights were you are living. bright ground based light have a dampening effect to star lights at they are viewed by the observer. if you want to see lots of them, i suggest that you go out far from the city where it is dark, provided the sky is not cloudy and that there is no moon in sight.
881578
True.  The preferential scattering of blue light by interstellar dust particles causing stars to appear redder.  This is called Reddening.
146136
If you are talking about shooting stars, they are obviously moving because they are buring out, and they go out with a bang!\n\nStars always seem to twinkle because their force is always moving, the gas makeup seems brighter and darker at times.\n\nOtherwise, the earth is always moving, thats why they seem to never stand still. ( try looking at a planet in a high powered telescope, you only have it in focus for a few moments, then you have to readjust to keep looking at it because of the earths rotation.)
26083
The light appears to twinkle as it passes through our atmosphere.
933426
At the zenith, you can observer an astronomical object through the least amount of Earths atmosphere.\n\nThe more atmosphere that the light from the object passes through before hitting your eyes (or telescope), the more blurry the image. This is what causes stars (and planets to a lesser degree) to "twinkle".  It follows that since you are looking through less air, starlight  is also less affected by dust particles and air currents.\n\nStill, cold, thin air = good seeing. (One reason why most of the major ground based observatories are at high altitudes)
96173
Here's what they don't teach you in advanced astro-physics:\n\nThey twinkle because they're happy, like when a puppy's tail wags.
387444
Not really, but they look like twinkling because moving particles from space block the light that we see from down here so it looks like it's twinkling...Hope you understood my answer...sorry...
193287
well stars are in real more like our sun which gives heat and light, but y they have diff color id coz AS ALL THE STARS ARE NOT AT THE SAME DISTANCE FRM THE EARTH THE LIGHT WHICH TRAVELLS FRM THEM AND REACHES US GIVE THEm COLOR .\n\nLIKE white light has 7 colors in it and each has different wave lenght which means that their light travels on those wave lenghts, and secondly the air in our atmosphere water particles are suspended always and these light passing through them give different wave lenght wch gives us diff color