Why Do Stars Twinkle?
The twinkling of a star is due to atmospheric refraction
of starlight. Stars appear as an only point size in the sky, because they are very
far away from us. The star light on
entering the earth atmosphere undergoes refraction continuously before reaching
to the earth due to slowly changing refractive index of various layer of
atmosphere. The apparent position of star is not fixed but keeps varying and
slightly, since the physical conditions of earth atmosphere are continuously
changing. So the star light flux entering the eye fluctuates with time. Due to
this, the star appear brighter and at some other time fainter. Thus the
fluctuating apparent position of the star gives rise to the twinkling effect of
the star to the eye.
Stars nearer to the horizon appear to twinkle more than
stars that are above your head - this is because the star light near the
horizon has to travel more distance in air than the light of stars above your
head. The scientific name of this twinkling
effect is stellar scintillation.
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