Why did i see a rapidly brightening and dimming star?

Question

Last night i saw a star blink rapidly. I thought it might have been clouds moving around or maybe my eyes not adjusted well enough yet so i decided to watch it for a while. 10 minutes later I it was still flickering away. I asked maybe 4 or 5 people what they thought of it and they agreed that it was flickering pretty rapidly.

I saw it brighten up for a fraction of a second and then dim again. At some points it almost seemed to be changing colors but I can't be too certain of that. The brightest star of them all appeared south that night with the flickering star appearing west.

I was really fascinated by the star and probably looked at it for 30 minutes. I would love to know why it was flickering and maybe even find out which star it was.

I can't be too sure of what I saw, me and this other guy also saw a falling star streak across the night sky while other accused of looking at a bird haha! So another question would be are there actual stars that are known to act like this? Pulsars perhaps? Are there Pulsars even visible from earth by the naked eye?

Answer 1

stars are constantly burning through energy. They twinkle because of the fluctuations of energy being consumed. I can find a handful of stars every night that go between the whitish standard light for stars, and also red and blue. It is not abnormal. You wouldnt have seen a star dying because if you were we would all know about it.