Why Do Stars Twinkle?
Stars appear to twinkle, planets don't. Here's why. Did you know you can distinguish between stars and planets in the sky? Stars twinkle, planets don't. Okay, that's not actually correct. The stars, planets, even the sun and moon twinkle, all in varying amounts. Anything outside the atmosphere is going to twinkle. If you're feeling a little silly using the word twinkle over and over again, we can also use the scientific term: astronomical scintillation. You can't feel it, but you're carrying the entire weight of the atmosphere on your shoulders. Every single square inch of your skin is getting pushed by 15 pounds of pressure. And even though astronomers need our atmosphere to survive, it still drives them crazy. As it makes objects in space so much harder to see. Stars twinkle, I mean scintillate, because as light passes down through a volume of air, turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere refracts light differently from moment...