why do stars twinkle?
Answers
he twinkling of stars in our night sky is down to the Earth’s atmosphere. As light from the stars travels towards Earth it can easily move in a straight line, but once it starts travelling through the Earth’s atmosphere it gets bounced around in different directions by the particles in the air.
For astronomers this twinkling can be a huge problem, especially when they’re trying to accurately image a particular star. The more the star twinkles, the blurrier the image will be.
If telescopes are launched into space then all images can be taken without Earth’s atmosphere in the way, but this is expensive. It is possible to use a system called ‘adaptive optics’, when tiny motors alter the surface of the telescope’s mirror to correct for this blur caused by the air
The twinkling of star is due to atmospheric refraction of starlight. The starlight on entering the earth's atmosphere undergoes refraction continuously before it reaches the earth.The atmospheric refraction occurs in a medium of gradually changing refractive index.The atmosphere bends the starlight towards the normal, the Apparent position of the star is slightly different from its actual position. The star appears slightly higher (above) than its actual position when viewed near the Horizon.since the stars are very distant the approximate point-sized sources of light