space stuff Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 (edited) Stars appear to twinkle whereas, planets do not. Why ? I am a bit confused about it by reading from books. Can somebody explain it clearly ? Edited February 22, 2012 by Sarthak Sahu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Stars appear to twinkle whereas, planets do not. Why ? I am a bit confused about it by reading from books. Can somebody explain it clearly ? Do you understand the cause of the twinkling of the stars? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
space stuff Posted February 22, 2012 Author Share Posted February 22, 2012 Do you understand the cause of the twinkling of the stars? Yes, I do. It is due to the refraction of starlight by the moving air pockets in the atmosphere. But, what confuses me is that the stars are said be point sized objects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Yes, I do. It is due to the refraction of starlight by the moving air pockets in the atmosphere. But, what confuses me is that the stars are said be point sized objects. That's because they are very, very far away. Light years away, even for the closest star, and most are orders of magnitude further away. Whereas planets are light-minutes away, so the angular size of a (naked-eye visible) planet is large compared to that of a star — they are bigger than the fluctuations in refraction caused by the turbulence in the atmosphere. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
space stuff Posted February 22, 2012 Author Share Posted February 22, 2012 That's because they are very, very far away. Light years away, even for the closest star, and most are orders of magnitude further away. Whereas planets are light-minutes away, so the angular size of a (naked-eye visible) planet is large compared to that of a star — they are bigger than the fluctuations in refraction caused by the turbulence in the atmosphere. Thank you sir ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rktpro Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Yes, I do. It is due to the refraction of starlight by the moving air pockets in the atmosphere. An interesting point you must note here is that scintillation or twinkling is possible due to turbulence of atmosphere and continuous change in apparent position of the star. Also, the turbulence is the cause of change in amount of light entering the eye. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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