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One common example is the rainbow, when light from the Sun is reflected and refracted by water droplets. Some phenomena, such as the green ray, are so rare they are sometimes thought to be mythical. [2] Others, such as Fata Morganas, are commonplace in favored locations. Other phenomena are simply interesting aspects of optics, or
Atmospheric optical phenomena include: Afterglow; Airglow; Alexander's band, the dark region between the two bows of a double rainbow. Alpenglow; Anthelion; Anticrepuscular rays; Aurora (northern and southern lights, aurora borealis and aurora australis) Belt of Venus; Brocken Spectre; Circumhorizontal arc; Circumzenithal arc; Cloud iridescence ...
Another example is incandescent light bulbs, which emit only around 10% of their energy as visible light and the remainder as infrared. A common thermal light source in history is the glowing solid particles in flames, but these also emit most of their radiation in the infrared and only a fraction in the visible spectrum.
The rare light spectacle has caused a bit of buzz this year as the sun is entering its most active period, ramping up the number of dazzling natural phenomena that appear in the night sky — and ...
Meteorological optical phenomena, as described in this article, are concerned with how the optical properties of Earth's atmosphere cause a wide range of optical phenomena and visual perception phenomena. Examples of meteorological phenomena include: The blue color of the sky.
Glory around the shadow of a plane. The position of the glory's centre shows that the observer was in front of the wings. A glory is an optical phenomenon, resembling an iconic saint's halo around the shadow of the observer's head, caused by sunlight or (more rarely) moonlight interacting with the tiny water droplets that comprise mist or clouds.
1665 – Francesco Maria Grimaldi highlights the phenomenon of diffraction; 1673 – Ignace Pardies provides a wave explanation for refraction of light; 1675 – Robert Boyle discovers that electric attraction and repulsion can act across a vacuum and do not depend upon the air as a medium. Adds resin to the known list of "electrics".
The fact that light could be polarized was for the first time qualitatively explained by Newton using the particle theory. Étienne-Louis Malus in 1810 created a mathematical particle theory of polarization. Jean-Baptiste Biot in 1812 showed that this theory explained all known phenomena of light polarization. At that time polarization was ...