Why do stars twinkle?

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On a clear, dark night, our eyes can see about 6,000 or so stars in the sky. They seem to twinkle, or change their brightness, all the time. In fact, most of the stars are shining with a steady light. The movement of air in the atmosphere of Earth causes the starlight to get slightly bent as it travels...
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On a clear, dark night, our eyes can see about 6,000 or so stars in the sky. They seem to twinkle, or change their brightness, all the time. In fact, most of the stars are shining with a steady light. The movement of air in the atmosphere of Earth causes the starlight to get slightly bent as it travels from the distant star through the atmosphere down to us on the ground. This means that some of the light reaches us directly and some gets bent slightly away. To our eyes, this makes the star seem to twinkle. You will notice that stars closer to the horizon will appear to twinkle more than other stars. This is because there is a lot more atmosphere between you and a star near the horizon than between you and a star higher in the sky. read less
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This is called stellar scintillation (or astronomical scintillation). Stars twinkle because we see them through thick layers of moving air in the Earth's atmosphere. Stars closer to the horizon appear to twinkle more than stars that are overhead - this is because the light of stars near the horizon...
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This is called stellar scintillation (or astronomical scintillation). Stars twinkle because we see them through thick layers of moving air in the Earth's atmosphere. Stars closer to the horizon appear to twinkle more than stars that are overhead - this is because the light of stars near the horizon has to travel through more air than the light of stars overhead and so is subject to more refraction. Also, planets do not usually twinkle, because they are so close to us; they appear big enough that the twinkling is unnoticeable (except when the air is extremely turbulent). read less
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Chemistry Wizard/English Expert

Stars, except for the Sun, although they may be millions of miles in diameter, are very far away. They appear as point sources even when viewed by telescopes. The planets in our solar system, much smaller than stars, are closer and can be resolved as disks with a little bit of magnification (field...
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Stars, except for the Sun, although they may be millions of miles in diameter, are very far away. They appear as point sources even when viewed by telescopes. The planets in our solar system, much smaller than stars, are closer and can be resolved as disks with a little bit of magnification (field binoculars, for example). Since the Earth's atmosphere is turbulent, all images viewed up through it tend to "swim." The result of this is that sometimes a single point in object space gets mapped to two or more points in image space, and also sometimes a single point in object space does not get mapped into any point in image space. When a star's single point in object space fails to map to at least one point in image space, the star seems to disappear temporarily. This does not mean the star's light is lost for that moment. It just means that it didn't get to your eye, it went somewhere else. Since planets represent several points in object space, it is highly likely that one or more points in the planet's object space get mapped to a points in image space, and the planet's image never winks out. Each individual ray is twinkling away as badly as any star, but when all of those individual rays are viewed together, the next effect is averaged out to something considerably steadier. The result is that stars tend to twinkle, and planets do not. Other extended objects in space, even very far ones like nebulae, do not twinkle if they are sufficiently large that they have non-zero apparent diameter when viewed from the Earth. read less
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The scientific term for twinkling is Astronomical Scintillation. Due to turbulence in air every light ray entering our atmosphere scintillates. So why only stars appear to twinkle? This is because they are so far away (the nearest star, after sun. is around 4.2 light years away) they appear as point...
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The scientific term for twinkling is Astronomical Scintillation. Due to turbulence in air every light ray entering our atmosphere scintillates. So why only stars appear to twinkle? This is because they are so far away (the nearest star, after sun. is around 4.2 light years away) they appear as point objects in the sky. Which means they are represented by a single ray of light. Whereas planets appear like minute discs having more than one light ray to represent them. So, a single light ray coming from outer space and entering our retina becomes a chance instance and thus sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't reach our eye. This is what you see as twinkling. The scintillation doesn't happen with multiple rays, because even if one ray doesn't reach our eye some other ray eventually does and your retina always captures and retains some image of the planet. read less
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Math master

Stars twinkle as the light passes down through a volume of air, it gets disturbed due to the movement of atmospheric warm and cold airs , thus it appears to be twinkling to us on earth .
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Counseling Psychologist, Special Educator in LD,.Educational Psychologist, School Counselor.

Due to the refraction of rays.
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Multiple refractions
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Math Educator for Std.11th ,12th , Engineering Entrance and Degree Level with 11+ Years Experience

In fact , Stars do not twinkle.They are far away from the earth. So, they appear as point-sized sources of light. Our atmosphere is largely heterogeneous. Its various layers have different densities and different refractive index. Due to these changing physical properties, the amount of starlight reaching...
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In fact , Stars do not twinkle.They are far away from the earth. So, they appear as point-sized sources of light. Our atmosphere is largely heterogeneous. Its various layers have different densities and different refractive index. Due to these changing physical properties, the amount of starlight reaching the earth changes from time to time. The stars sometimes appear brighter and at other times dull. This leads to the twinkling effect. read less
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http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/stars/twinkle.shtml
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Tutor

there are various layers in our atmosphere of different density .Generally as we move from lower part ie. troposphere to highest ie ionosphere the density of atmosphere gradually decreases.Due to this the light bends at different angles due to refraction phenomenon.Hence the stars appear to twinkle
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