Scintillation (astronomy) - Planetary Scintillation

Planetary Scintillation

Light from planets, stars and other astronomical objects can suffer from scintillation. Stars twinkle because they are so far from earth that they appear as point sources of light easily disturbed by earth's atmospheric turbulence which acts like lenses and prisms diverting the light's path. Large astronomical objects closer to the earth, like the moon and other planets, encompass many points in space and can be resolved as objects with observable diameters. With multiple observed points of light traversing the atmosphere, their light's deviations average out and the viewer perceives less variation in light coming from them.

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