Name the phenomenon which causes the twinkling of stars.

The phenomenon that causes the twinkling of stars is the refraction of light.

Explanation

When the light coming from the star enters the earth's atmosphere, it gets refracted (bent), due to varying optical densities of air at various altitudes. The atmosphere keeps changing continuously due to which light from the stars gets refracted by different amounts from one moment to the next.

When the atmosphere refracts more star-light towards us, the star appears to be bright, whereas when it refracts less star-light, then it appears to be dim. In this way, the star-light reaching our eyes increases and decreases continuously due to refraction, and thus star appears to twinkle at night.

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Updated on: 10-Oct-2022

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