Many kids grow up singing the rhymes, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.. but they don't know exactly why do the star twinkle?
In this post, we will get to know why do the star twinkle?
Actually, the twinkling of stars is due to a phenomenon known as atmospheric refraction.
Atmospheric refraction is the bending of light caused by the earth's atmosphere.
It's the Earth's atmosphere that is changing continuously.
There are various layers in the earth's atmosphere which consists of various temperature and density.
The stars are constant with their brightness.
When the light of a star travels through the earth's atmosphere towards us, the continuously changing earth's atmosphere refracts which bends the light coming from stars by different amounts and in different directions every moment.
When the atmosphere refracts more starlight towards us, the star appears bright whereas when the atmosphere refracts less starlight, the star appears dim.
In this way, the amount of starlight reaching our eyes increases or decreases causing the star to appear twinkling.
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