If you look up at the stars at night, then you might think the stars flicker, blink, wink, or twinkle. You might ask yourself, “why do the stars appear to twinkle?” While you may think that the stars are twinkling, they are shining steadily. They only appear to twinkle because of the interaction between your eyes, the starlight, and the Earth’s atmosphere. The Earth’s atmosphere is made up of different levels of temperatures and densities. In addition to the temperature and density differences, there is a lot of wind in the atmosphere. When the star’s light enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it must pass through these layers of temperature differences, density differences, and wind. Moving air in the atmosphere can be called turbulence. The star’s light must enter our atmosphere, but the star’s light does not necessarily move in a straight line through the atmosphere. Instead, the starlight is refracted or is spread around in different directions in the atmosphere. The starligh...