Why does the star Sirius flash different colors?

But the star Sirius shifts through every color of the rainbow. That effect is thanks to the same turbulence that bends starlight slightly and makes stars look like they're twinkling in the first place. These air fluctuations bend different colors of light by different amounts, giving Sirius its multi-hued appearance.

Read more

What does the color of Sirius mean?

Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is providing astronomers with a headache. It is simply the wrong color. Ancient manuscripts--including those of Ptolemy, Cicero, Seneca, Horace and several Babylonian astronomers--describe the star as bright red. Today it is a very obvious bluish-white. Does Sirius Twinkle different colors? Sirius is the brightest star in the sky and can easily be found in the faint constellation of Canis Major to the left and below Orion. As seen with the naked eye, Sirius can be seen to twinkle many different colors low in the winter evening sky.

Is Sirius Star red?

Seneca (c.ad 25) stated the redness of Sirius to be 'deeper than that of Mars'. Ptolemy described Sirius as 'hipokeros' (reddish) in the Almagest (c.ad 150), and likened it in colour to Aldebaran, Antares, Arcturus, Betelgeuse and Pollux - stars that are, of course, known to be red today. Can stars blink different colors? This is because of scintillation ("Twinkling") as the light passes through the atmosphere of the Earth. As the air moves in and out, the starlight is refracted, often different colors in different directions. Because of this "chromatic abberation," stars can appear to change colors when they are twinkling strongly.

Why is Sirius so sparkly?

This rapid flashing of colour and brightness is caused by the star's light being refracted in the layers of Earth's atmosphere. It is most pronounced when Sirius is low and so its light is travelling through more atmosphere to reach our eyes. As it rises higher into the sky, the twinkling diminishes.