ipl-logo

The Technical Term For When Stars Twinkle Is Astronomical Scintillation?

250 Words1 Pages
The technical term for when stars twinkle is astronomical scintillation. “As light travels through the blanket of air around our planet, it is diffracted (bounced around) causing a quick apparent dimming and brightening — a star's signature ‘twinkle’” (Temming). The twinkling of the stars is an illusion caused by Earth’s atmosphere. Stars give out single points of light that, when moving through the different winds, temperatures, and densities of Earth, bend in the exact same way; therefore, the light coherently varies and only primarily strikes a single receptor in the human eye. The resolution of the human eye and the effect of the atmosphere causes the stars to twinkle (Kornreich and Cool Cosmos). The reason why telescopes outside of the
Open Document