Why does the light from stars twinkle while the light reflecting from planets stays steady?

Favorite Answer

Stars are so distant that they are just single points of light. Saying that another way, the light from stars comes from a single, tiny point. Then that very small point of light gets all twisted and reflected and refracted by Earth's atmosphere. Your eye sees all this as twinkling.

Planets, however, are not point sources; you can't see it with the naked eye but they're disks. From that wide disk surface light arrives at your eye from many different directions. The eye automatically averages out all those directions and you see one, fairly steady light.

You can sort of compare it with the light from two flashlights. One flashlight has a very tiny light bulb, the other a much larger bulb....Show more

Hi:

Actually the planets twinkle too. but the reason why they do is due to refraction of light due to the uneven heating in the atmosphere. The atmosphere is made up of air molecules which get heated by the Sun during the day . At night time the air start to cool down so when light from a star or planet is moving a straight line toward Earth ,it encounter the atmosphere where the light slow down a bit which cause it to bend slightly However the atmosphere has pockets of air that are a different densities due them being unevenly heated and moving about due the wind that this light is bent all the time in drifferent directions when make it twinkle to you and me on the Earth . the reason the planet seem steady is due the fact they are closer to us and the are lot more points where light from the planet in the sky where it light can reach you from, so it appear to be steady when in fact it not . This also the reason why the Sun does not twinkle in the sky during the day

I hope this help explain it...Show more

Because stars are emitting the light and planets are reflecting the light from other stars....Show more

light from a star is its own light and travel from millions of light years away
a planets light is reflected from our sun
just like the moon...Show more