Image: Steve Jurvetson
In Brief
- Looking down on a cloud from a mountain or an airplane, sometimes you can spot a glory: rings of colored light around your shadow or the plane’s.
- As in a rainbow, the colors are produced by the microscopic water droplets that compose clouds, but in the case of glories the physics is more subtle.
- The light energy beamed back by a glory originates mostly from wave tunneling, which is when light rays that missed a droplet can still transfer energy into it.
- The understanding gained from glories is helping climatologists to improve models of how cloud cover may contribute to or alleviate climate change.
On a daytime flight pick a window seat that will allow you to locate the shadow of the airplane on the clouds; this requires figuring out the direction of travel relative to the position of the sun. If you are lucky, you may be rewarded with one of the most beautiful of all meteorological sights: a multicolored-light halo surrounding the shadow. Its iridescent rings are not those of a rainbow but of a different and more subtle effect called a glory. It is most striking when the clouds are closest because then it dominates the whole horizon.
If you are a mountain climber, you may also see a glory soon after sunrise, around the shadow your own head casts on nearby clouds. Here is how it was described in the first reported observation, published in 1748 and made a decade earlier by members of a French scientific expedition to the top of Pambamarca in what is now Ecuador: “A cloud that covered us dissolved itself and let through the rays of the rising sun.... Then each of us saw his shadow projected upon the cloud.... What seemed most remarkable to us was the appearance of a halo or glory around the head, consisting of three or four small concentric circles, very brightly colored.... The most surprising thing was that, of the six or seven people who were present, each of them saw the phenomenon only around the shadow of his own head, and saw nothing around other people’s heads.”
This article was originally published with the title The Science of the Glory.
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9 Comments
Add Commentquote -- which is when light rays that missed a droplet can still transfer energy into it.
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surprisingly subtle! Hmmmmmmmmmm
TORNADO'S The How and Why http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=11462
While an air cell is expanded its nuclei are of a size that does not interact with the sun's radiation and little light is produced leaving a dark cloud (black). The vortex of energy released from the earth has now mutated to a size as to interact with gravity and air, returning to earth as a destructive tornado.
I believe that my discoveries, science and technology be considered to solve any mysteries in regards to the collapse of the three 9/11 towers. The energy dispersed with the two crashing air craft would be added to the energy of natural fire.
What you are seeing or rather not seeing in the black smoke being produced is the energy it took to collapse these buildings.
The multiple explosions or noise that the last man in tower 7 heard was the collapsing of atmospheric cells.
Note the black wave -- Tsunami hits Japan 8.9 magnitude earthquake - Friday March 11, 2011
Black -- the nuclei energy shows in the black smoke of burning oil.
Adding air or oxygen to fire produces a hotter fire because oxygen "is" fire.
Like the small nuclei of a black hole does not interact with matter so it is with the nuclei of an air cell. The reaction of fire causes these small particles to separate and being that these many repelling particles are the same strength as the cell multiplying fires energy or heat.
If by chance you ever encounter a dust devil, water spout, fire tornado that is black, stay away as it may turn out to be the likes of a miniature Tunguska Disaster.
scenario;
Ocean waves are two feet, there is no effort standing in this (little energy).
A rouge three foot wave comes along and with its energy knocks you over and beats the hell out of you as it's dragging your body along the bottom.
Ocean waves are "three" feet, there is no effort standing in this (little energy).
A rouge four foot wave comes along and with its energy knocks you over and beats the hell out of you as it's dragging your body along the bottom.
The blackness of outer space! Think of the energy!
Wildfires around the globe have been horrific and will continue.
There is a reason why.
Dr Nussenzveig,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat an impressive and insightful analysis! When I started reading it, I had no idea where your article was heading for the explanation. That made it all the more delightful when I read your simple but far-from-obvious explanation in the latter part of the article. I also liked the way you pointed out connections to other parts of physics and to everyday experience.
After decades of being a loyal Scientific American subscriber, I allowed my subscription to lapse several years ago, mostly due to making more use of electronic media more. Articles like yours are enough to make me reconsider that decision.
Cheers,
Terry Bollinger
I was prompted to write t after reading an article in S.A., "The Science of the Glory"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI applied my finite thinking of the Spiritual aspect of the article to the Shekinah Glory.
I decided to suggest to you some of my thinking as I read.
In His service, Bruce
FYI:
THE SHEKINAH GLORY; The Presence of the Lord would fill the holy of Holies.
Exod 40:34-35 Then the CLOUD covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the GLORY of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the CLOUD rested above it, and the GLORY of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
When the glory of the Lord came down and filled the tabernacle for the first time it must have been an awesome spectacle to behold. God was truly pleased with His people, not because of their goodness but because their sins were covered and they were hid in Christ who was to come someday. I believe the high priest sensed a sweetness when he encountered the Presence of the Lord in the holy of Holies. The etymology of the dwelling or presence of God is the Hebrew word Sh'cheenah or as we pronounce it Shekinah. The term Shekinah was many times used interchangeably with the word God. In the Jewish mind it always spoke of the fact that He "dwelt in" or "rested upon" those who merited His favor, whether an individual, a community, or the entire Jewish people. (The article speaks of a tunnel of light, that may be what some have incountered in their near death experiences.)
Scholars have always seen a connection between the concept of the Shekinah and the idea of Logos "The Word" which Philo introduced into Jewish philosophical thinking. Of course a much greater emphasis was placed upon the word Logos when the apostle John introduced his gospel account of the life of Jesus with these suggestive words:
John 1:1-2 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. 4
14:The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his GLORY, who came from the Father.
Scholars also see the similarities between Shekinah (God's "Presence"), The Holy Spirit of God (Heb. Ruach Elohim; Gr. Pneuma Hagion),.
Any attempt to draw a substantial difference between these words have never been satisfactorily established and thus they are often used interchangeably.
As your article says; "The inescapable conclusion is that GLORIES are a macroscopic light-tunneling effect.
COULD THEY BE FROM GOD?
You stated:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"While an air cell is expanded its nuclei are of a size that does not interact with the sun's radiation and little light is produced leaving a dark cloud (black). The vortex of energy released from the earth has now mutated to a size as to interact with gravity and air, returning to earth as a destructive tornado."
Isn't the simplest explanation that the cloud is so dense that most of the Solar radiation is absorbed by it, preventing the heating of its interior? This produces cooling of the air in the lower regions of the cloud (sometimes even freezing the cloud's water vapor, producing hail), eventually falling through the rising air heated by the already hot ground. I think it is these vertical, opposingly directed airflows that produce potential vortexes...
The Glory can't help but remind me of a dazzling solar effect I experienced on a winter morning at Zealand Hut in the White Mountains of New Hampshire several years ago. Though the sky was clear blue and no visible snow was falling, the air was in fact filled with tiny ice particles that became visible only when looking in the direction of the sun. Below is the account I wrote of the phenomenon at the time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"After washing breakfast dishes, and hands, in water heated on the stove, I step onto the porch under a blue sky when I’m treated to another novel effect of sun and snow. Just yards away in the direction of the sun, from zenith to ground, the air shimmers in a dazzling column of light. Like dust motes visible only where the light catches them, a thick swarm of tiny ice crystals blaze. What’s most remarkable is their combined effect, like an array of mirrors focused on the observer, producing this blinding, gold fringed halo."
The other "novel effect of sun and snow" I experienced on that excursion was on the previous day, which was warmer, just about freezing. As we hiked enormous snowflake crystals a quarter inch, perhaps even 3/8 of an inch across winked at us from the ground and branches of shrubs. They were so large their crystal structure was clearly visible like paper snowflakes pasted on a schoolroom window.
1stprinciplesdesign.wordpress.com
Pretty much sure that a simple light effect isn't "from God". It is obviously from physical phenomenon compliant with the physical laws of reality. If, as I do, you choose to believe that God created those physical laws then you could make the rather long stretch to say they are "from God" but then so is a fart. I prefer not to deify farts so let's just keep physics with science and let religion play in it's own sandbox.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is a picture I took of a "Glory" over Southern California on January 15, 2012. One day before this article was published. I had no idea what it was. Thanks for the explanation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/imatty35/6708114761/" title="A "Glory" below my Airplane by Matthew Straubmuller, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7021/6708114761_a35be4dc8f.jpg" width="500" height="374" alt="A "Glory" below my Airplane"></a>
Here is a picture I took of a "Glory" over Southern California on January 15, 2012. One day before this article was published. I had no idea what it was. Thanks for the explanation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.flickr.com/photos/imatty35/6708114761/
Admin please delete the duplicate post above. I was trying to get my picture I took of a "Glory" into this comment reply
Hmmm...ok, as far as that explanation goes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo scientifically explaining a Glory is kinda like explaining away near death experiences as "oxygen deprivation".
Imho, the scientific data things may be happening, but do not "explain the events away", or otherwise mean they have no spiritual connection.
There are still questions unanswered.
I experienced a spectacularly large Glory, while visiting the observation deck on top of Mt. Diablo, in Contra Costa County, CA, USA.
Sun was sinking in the West, I was facing East; the cloud bank had a donut hole over the observation deck.
At first I was alone, and thot, oh, droplets on the sweaters, of course!
so removed those. Yet the Glory was undistrubed.
It moved only as I moved, complete with my shadow clerly seen within it, the Glory centered on my head, though.
Ok.
Waited for other people to meander by.
Failed to see any Glory around anyone else, no matter where they stood on that deck--except for tiny ones around a couple small children.
None seemed to see the Glory around my shadow.
So,
Q: Why no other people had Glory around them?
Q: Why no one else seemed to see the Glory around my shadow, even when I tried to passively get anyone else to see it?
Inquiring minds want to know...!