Why do the stars sparkle? | Live Science
When you look up at the sky on a sunny night in a dark place, the stars look like they are twinkling. The concept is so well established that it assumes one of the most popular children’s songs to date.
But what is the science behind this glittering spectacle? What does it mean for the stars to twinkle?
“Glitter, glitter, little star” is a bit of a misnomer.
Related: 15 unforgettable star images
The stars don’t really shimmer
The honest answer to why stars twinkle is that they don’t twinkle. The sparkle we see has nothing to do with the stars themselves.Rather, it is the result of how we see them from our point of view. Earth..
The stars are so far away that they appear as small spots of light in the night sky.
“Starlight travels long distances to reach our eyes on sunny nights,” said Ryan French, a solar physicist at University College London in the United Kingdom. Sun — The average distance to Earth is 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) — The closest star to us is Proxima Centauri, which is more than four light-years away from Earth.
On the way to our eyes, this light from a distant star encounters the Earth’s atmosphere, the main driving force behind the sparkling effect.
“When this spot of light reaches the atmosphere, it passes through a layer of swaying air before it reaches our eyes, causing it to shimmer,” said the French.
Therefore, it is the earth’s wobbling atmosphere that makes the stars. appear Glitter. In outer space, which is higher than the atmosphere, stars do not twinkle at all. (This is one of the reasons why the Hubble Space Telescope was put into orbit. It may be possible to obtain a clearer space image without distorting the image due to atmospheric eddy.)
Why some stars sparkle more than others
Many factors affect the amount of glittering stars. One variable is the position of the stars in the field of view.
“The more air the star’s light passes through before it reaches our eyes, the more sparkle the star will be,” said the French.
The weather also has an effect. “On a damp night, the air will also get thicker,” said the French, making the stars look more shimmering.
These issues help astronomers decide where to place the world’s largest astronomers. The best telescope.. “The observatory is placed in a high, dry place to remove as much air as possible between the stars and the telescope,” the French said.
Ideal locations include Chile’s dry Atacama Desert, Hawaii’s volcanic peaks, and Spain’s Canary Islands. These places are examples of what astronomers call good “seeing.” “Thick air, which causes a lot of wobbling and shimmering, looks bad, while dry, calm, thin air looks good.”
If you look up at the night sky, you may also notice that some stars appear to shift between different colors when they twinkle. Sirius, the brightest star in the Earth’s night sky, is a classic example.
“Starlight refracts [bent] The color may change slightly depending on the atmosphere. “
You may also notice some “stars” that don’t sparkle at all. That’s because they are actually planets. “Unlike stars, planets are not the source of the sky, but they are wide,” the French said. “This is because they are much closer to us.” In other words, they are too big in the night sky to make the atmosphere look shimmering.
But if you look at the planet, or MoonThrough the telescope, you will still see them twinkling as the light you are seeing is swayed by the atmosphere on your way to your eyes.
Original article about live science.
Why do the stars sparkle? | Live Science
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