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Cloud iridescence, seen above the clouds covered with grey clouds, Pondicherry, India. Cloud iridescence or irisation is a colorful optical phenomenon that occurs in a cloud and appears in the general proximity of the Sun or Moon. The colors resemble those seen in soap bubbles and oil on a water surface. It is a type of photometeor.
Sunlight shining through clouds, giving rise to crepuscular rays. Crepuscular rays are sunbeams that originate when the Sun appears to be just above or below a layer of clouds, during the twilight period. [1] Crepuscular rays are noticeable when the contrast between light and dark is most obvious. Crepuscular comes from the Latin word ...
The optical image (left) shows clouds of dust, while the infrared image (right) displays a number of young stars. Credit: C. R. O'Dell-Vanderbilt University, NASA, and ESA. Color–color diagrams are often used in infrared astronomy to study star forming regions. Stars form in clouds of dust. As the star continues to contract, a circumstellar ...
Zodiacal light is a faint glow of diffuse light in the sky scattered by interplanetary dust, particularly a zodiacal cloud, along the ecliptic, and therefore the zodiac. It is mostly only visible in very dark conditions across the night sky along the whole ecliptic as the zodiacal band, [2] backscattered slightly brighter from an oval area of ...
This is a list of star-forming regions located in the Milky Way Galaxy and in the Local Group. Star formation occurs in molecular clouds which become unstable to gravitational collapse, and these complexes may contain clusters of young stars and regions of ionized gas called H II regions. Stars typically form in groups of many stars, rather ...
Photometric system. In astronomy, a photometric system is a set of well-defined passbands (or optical filters ), with a known sensitivity to incident radiation. The sensitivity usually depends on the optical system, detectors and filters used. For each photometric system a set of primary standard stars is provided.
In astronomy, the Great Rift (sometimes called the Dark Rift or less commonly the Dark River) is a dark band caused by interstellar clouds of cosmic dust that significantly obscure ( extinguish) the center and most radial sectors of the Milky Way galaxy from Earth 's perspective. In dark, clear night skies, the rift appears as clear as the ...
Many star names are, in origin, descriptive of the part in the constellation they are found in; thus Phecda, a corruption of Arabic فخذ الدب ( fakhdh ad-dubb, 'thigh of the bear'). Only a handful of the brightest stars have individual proper names not depending on their asterism; so Sirius ('the scorcher'), Antares ('rival of Ares ', i.e ...