Lainey
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Sunspots are relatively cool areas on the sun's surface where the sun's magnetic lines are getting twisted up throughout it's 11 year magnetic cycle. They appear dark because the temperature is cooler than the surrounding gas and because in those regions gas is plummeting toward the solar core along the magnetic line, while around it gas is pluming up.
Stars and planets alike twinkle. They twinkle more in the summer time when our atmosphere is warmer and more turbulent. The light shining down on earth passes through our atmosphere and gets scattered. During the day, because our own star, the sun, is so close all the light is scattered to make a blue sky. But at night, the stars are so far away there isn't enough light to make the sky blue but we still see the points of light and as they pass through the atmosphere the light appears to shimmer as it rides through the waves of the upper and middle atmosphere to your eyes. It doesn't matter whether the light comes from a star or planet, it will shimmer in the right conditions.
nanorman
Sunspots are just cooler regions of the sun due to currents within the sun of all the gases.
Plants do not twinkle because they are so close in comparison that there is enough light so it does not seem distorted. Very little light comes from distant stars so the little amount of light can be effected by the gases in the atmosphere.
Elizabeth H
Sunspots are cooler regions on the Sun's photosphere (about 1500 K cooler) and so appear to be darker than the photosphere. A given sunspot can have a lifetime ranging from a few hours to a few months. It consists of two parts - the dark inside region called the umbra and the surrounding less dark region called the penumbra. Their sizes vary over a wide range, with a few having been measured to be 50,000 km in diameter!
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/sun.html
In very turbulent air planets can appear to twinkle
The Arbiter of common sense
both stars and planets twinkle. The effect is caused by currents in the earth's atmosphere, so anything viewed through it 'twinkles'
The effect is more noticeable when viewing a single point of light, so planets don't twinkle as much when viewed as discs, through a telescope.
Anonymous
a action picture star as sen from earth is a element source, on a similar time as a planet has discernible quantity. by using atmospheric turbulence a element source looks wavering or twinkling. In a source it somewhat is unfolded the twinkle is evened (averaged) out to make it look secure.