zodiacal light
Noun
Meaning
zodiacal light (plural zodiacal lights)
(astronomy) A soft glow of white light seen in the sky along the ecliptic in an elongated triangular form with its base being on the horizon, particularly in the tropics.
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Examples
Cultural significance The glow of the zodiacal light was perhaps first reported in print by Joshua Childrey in 1661.
In fact, the zodiacal light covers the entire sky and is responsible in large part Reach, W. T. (1997).
In recent years, observations by a variety of spacecraft have shown significant structure in the zodiacal light including dust bands associated with debris from particular asteroid families and several cometary trails.
It forms a slightly more luminous, oval glow directly opposite the Sun within the band of luminous zodiacal light.
Practitioners of Islam use Muhammed's descriptions of zodiacal light to avoid errors in determining the timing of daily prayers.
The amount of airglow and zodiacal light is quite variable (depending, amongst other things on sunspot activity and the Solar cycle ) but given optimal conditions the darkest possible sky has a brightness of about 22 magnitude/square arcsecond.