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Does our solar system have enough bodies in orbit to appear to twinkle to another distant solar system viewed from the side?

enter image description here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid-discovering_observatories

enter image description here https://phys.org/news/2018-11-nasa-lucy-sky-asteroids.html

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    $\begingroup$ While it looks crowded, it's really quite empty when drawn to scale. Jupiter, for example, when it crosses the sun's path it blocks about 1% of the sunlight. That's not very much when viewed from another solar system. $\endgroup$
    – userLTK
    Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 0:48
  • $\begingroup$ What userLTK said. The average distance between asteroids is around a million km, about 2.5 times the distance between the Earth & the Moon. $\endgroup$
    – PM 2Ring
    Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 0:51
  • $\begingroup$ @PM2Ring this would also include the Oort cloud and Jupiter Trojans and thickest of the asteroid belt would only cause the Sun to be dimmed 1%? $\endgroup$
    – Muze
    Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 0:58
  • $\begingroup$ @PM2Ring No answers in the comment box. $\endgroup$
    – Muze
    Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 1:26

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While objects blocking the sun may have an effect on the twinkle if viewed on another planet, a twinkle is mainly caused by the effect the atmosphere of a planet has on the light, or something interfering with the light that is passing to your eyes.

From Wikipedia's article on Twinkling:

Twinkling, or scintillation, is a generic term for variations in apparent brightness or position of a distant luminous object viewed through a medium. If the object lies outside the Earth's atmosphere, as in the case of stars and planets, the phenomenon is termed astronomical scintillation; within the atmosphere, the phenomenon is termed terrestrial scintillation.[2] As one of the three principal factors governing astronomical seeing (the others being light pollution and cloud cover), atmospheric twinkling is defined as variations in illuminance only.

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 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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    $\begingroup$ I think the black hole aspect of something else blocking is extremely rare. The atmospheric cause of twinkling is the primary reason. $\endgroup$
    – userLTK
    Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 0:47
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    $\begingroup$ @userLTK right. $\endgroup$
    – Max0815
    Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 0:47
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    $\begingroup$ Agreed. I'd define "twinkle" as the high-frequency component of delta brightness, and planetary occultation as mid-frequency, and (maybe) stellar output variation as low-frequency. $\endgroup$
    – Carl Witthoft
    Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 18:01
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    $\begingroup$ @uhoh I updated the answer on the binary systems and removed the black hole part. $\endgroup$
    – Max0815
    Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 19:21
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    $\begingroup$ @Max0815 looks great, thanks! $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 22:11

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