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✨ SCIENCE · Science explained · 2026-09-04

Why do stars twinkle but planets don't? The atmosphere explained in simple Japanese

Same news, rewritten for 6 Japanese school grades — pick your level below. Furigana + translation included.
164 chars · ~3 min · 18 kanji
✨ SCIENCE 星 ほし
Same sentence · 6 levels

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夜空よぞらの 星ほしは なぜ またたくのでしょうか。

実じつは 星ほしそのものが 消きえているのでは ありません。

星ほしの 光ひかりは 地球ちきゅうの 空気くうきを 通とおる とき、少すこし 曲まがります。

温度おんどの ちがう 空気くうきが まざり、いつも 動うごいて います。

だから 光ひかりの 向むきが 一秒いちびょうに 何度なんども かわり、またたいて 見みえます。

空気くうきの うすい 高たかい 山やまでは、あまり またたきません。

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Translation

Why do the stars in the night sky twinkle?

In fact, the stars themselves are not going out.

Starlight bends a little when it passes through the air around the Earth.

Air of different temperatures mixes together and is always moving.

So the direction of the light changes many times every second, and the stars look like they twinkle.

On a high mountain, where the air is thin, the stars hardly twinkle at all.

Why do stars twinkle?

Stars twinkle, but the stars themselves are not flashing on and off. The flicker is made by the Earth's atmosphere. Starlight travels an enormous distance, and only in the last hundred kilometres does it pass through air. That air is never still: pockets of warm and cold air, with different densities, mix and flow constantly, and each pocket bends the light by a tiny amount. The path of the light shifts dozens of times every second, so the star's brightness and colour appear to wobble.

Planets such as Mars and Jupiter hardly twinkle. They are much closer, so they appear as tiny discs rather than single points. Light from every part of the disc wobbles independently, the wobbles average out, and the planet shines steadily. Stars near the horizon twinkle most, because their light crosses a longer stretch of air. In winter in Japan, a strong jet stream blows high overhead, so twinkling is especially strong, and Sirius low in the sky can even seem to flash red and blue.

From space, where there is no atmosphere, stars do not twinkle at all. That is why observatories are built on high mountain peaks with thin, calm air, and why modern telescopes use adaptive optics to correct atmospheric turbulence and obtain images nearly as sharp as from orbit.

This article comes in six versions, one for each elementary-school kanji grade, with furigana and full Vietnamese and English translations, so you can read real Japanese at your level.

Why don't planets twinkle like stars?

Planets are much closer, so they appear as tiny discs instead of single points. Light from different parts of the disc wobbles independently and the wobbles average out, so a planet such as Mars or Jupiter shines with a steady light.

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Why six school grades, and not N5–N1?

Because that is how Japanese children learn to read. Japan's Ministry of Education fixes exactly which character belongs to which grade — so "grade 3" is a boundary you can verify, not a feeling. Every article here is machine-checked: if a single character sits above its grade, it is not published.

The result: you never hit a character you have not learned. That is the whole reason this product exists.

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