the universe's biggest flex turns into a jittery blue-white strobe light.
means pointing any backyard telescope at sirius shows the brightest star in our night sky flickering and flashing colors, not because the star is unstable but because earth's atmosphere is smearing it around.
from sirius has been watched since ancient egypt, where its dawn reappearance predicted the nile's flood, but the telescopic 'twinkling on steroids' effect only became a talking point once amateur astronomers started aiming eyepieces at it and panicking that they'd found a supernova.
sirius b — a white dwarf companion hidden in the glare, found 1862
epsilon eridani — nearby star showing similar low-altitude twinkle from northern latitudes
canis major — the constellation sirius anchors, visible worldwide each winter