It was affectionately named Astronaut’s Glory, in honor of the astronauts who died on re-entry a few days later. When sunlight shines on water droplets in clouds, a circular rainbow forms around the plane’s silhouette as it passes in front of the sun.Ī Brocker spectre even appeared from space in 2003, aboard the space shuttle Columbia. Variations of brightness and darkness are from differences in the droplets’ interactions with sunlight.Īirline passengers occasionally witness Brocken spectre-like glories. The spectre is categorized as a type of glory an inverted rainbow with red rings in its outer sections and blue rings in the centre. It was like an angel in the sky over the hills, it was quite magical. 'I took some photos of it and carried on walking. While he didn’t recreate the Brocken spectre, the chamber’s ability to detect radiation earned him the Nobel Prize in 1927. It was in this circular rainbow,' Howdle told SWNS. Years later, he built a cloud chamber in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. Wilson became fascinated with the Brocken spectre after witnessing it in 1894 from the summit of Ben Nevis, Scotland’s highest peak. He was enthralled with glories and natural optical illusions caused by the weather. Scottish physicist Charles Thomson Rees Wilson conducted one such famous experiment. Over the last century, scientists have tried to recreate the conditions for this mysterious phenomenon. It interprets the shadow as bigger than it actually is. The shadow’s increased size is an illusion that takes place when the brain has no reference points by which to judge size. The centre of the spectre, the shadow’s head, is an abstract point directly opposite the sun, called the anti-solar point. It reflects off the sides and backscatters in the person and the sun’s direction. Diffraction occurs when sunlight penetrates water droplets. This is due to a process called diffraction.
Photo: Morphart Creation/Shutterstock How does it form?Ī Brocken spectre occurs when the sun shines behind a person standing on a peak above clouds or fog, casting a magnified shadow and a large halo onto the misty depths below. The Spectrum of Brocken, a vintage engraving.
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