lucabrasi

hahaha. What a crazy bet!

I am glad to be back to school. I am only going for 1 class this semester because I am working a lot, but I can't wait to get my master's degree. To answer your questions:

***Stars twinkle when we see them from the Earth's surface because we are viewing them through thick layers of turbulent (moving) air in the Earth's atmosphere.

Stars (except for the Sun) appear as tiny dots in the sky; as their light travels through the many layers of the Earth's atmosphere, the light of the star is bent (refracted) many times and in random directions (light is bent when it hits a change in density - like a pocket of cold air or hot air). This random refraction results in the star winking out (it looks as though the star moves a bit, and our eye interprets this as twinkling).

Planets do not twinkle because they are larger and NOT in the Earth's atmosphere. There is less turbulence in space, thus the light does not hit the planets and refract.

-Illy

PS No more science questions. I minored in science when I got my elementary education degree....