Crepuscular Ray
Crepuscular rays, sometimes colloquially referred to as god rays, are sunbeams that originate when the Sun appears to be just above or below a layer of clouds, during the twilight period. Crepuscular rays are noticeable when the contrast (vision), contrast between light and dark is most obvious. Crepuscular comes from the Latin word , meaning "twilight". Crepuscular rays usually appear orange because optical path, the path through the atmosphere at dawn and dusk passes through up to 40 times as much air as rays from a high Sun at noon. particulates, Particles in the air light scattering by particles, scatter short-wavelength light (blue and green) through Rayleigh scattering much more strongly than longer-wavelength yellow and red light. Loosely, the term ''crepuscular rays'' is sometimes extended to the general phenomenon of rays of sunlight that appear to converge at a point in the sky, irrespective of time of day. A rare related phenomenon are anticrepuscular rays which can a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sunbeam
A sunbeam, in meteorological optics, is a lightbeam, beam of sunlight that appears to radiate from the position of the Sun. Shining through openings in clouds or between other objects such as mountains and buildings, these beams of light scattering by particles, particle-scattered sunlight are essentially parallel (geometry), parallel shafts separated by darker shadowed volumes. Their apparent convergence in the sky is a visual illusion from linear perspective. The same illusion causes the apparent convergence of parallel lines on a long straight road or hallway at a distant vanishing point. The scattering particles that make sunlight visible may be air molecules or particulates. Crepuscular rays ''Crepuscular rays'' or ''god rays'' are sunbeams that originate when the sun is just below the horizon, during twilight hours. Crepuscular rays are noticeable when the contrast between light and dark is most obvious. Crepuscular comes from the Latin word "crepusculum", meaning twili ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sun Over Lake Hawea, New Zealand
The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot Plasma (physics), plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light and infrared radiation with 10% at ultraviolet energies. It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. The Sun has been an The Sun in culture, object of veneration in many cultures. It has been a central subject for astronomical research since Ancient history, antiquity. The Sun orbits the Galactic Center at a distance of 24,000 to 28,000 light-years. Its distance from Earth defines the astronomical unit, which is about or about 8 light-minutes. Solar radius, Its diameter is about (), 109 times that of Earth. solar mass, The Sun's mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth, making up about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System. The mass of outer layer of the Sun's atmosphere, its ''photosphere'' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Heron Island, Queensland
Heron Island is a coral cay located near the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern Great Barrier Reef. It is north-east of Gladstone, Queensland, Australia, and north-north-west of the state capital Brisbane. The island is situated on the leeward (western) side of Heron Reef, a fringing platform reef of significant biodiversity, supporting around 900 of the 1,500 fish species and 72% of the coral species found on the Great Barrier Reef.University of Queensland Centre for Marine StudiesIsland Research Station. Retrieved 2006-JUL-14. During the summer months Heron Island is also home to over 200,000 birds including Noddy Terns and Mutton Birds. The island is about long and at its widest, giving an area of approximately . The highest point, near the western tip, is above sea level. A dune ridge along the southern shore rises some above sea level, lower dunes on the north-eastern side are only about above the sea. Heron Island and an extrapolated version of the research stat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anticrepuscular Rays
Anticrepuscular rays, or antisolar rays, are meteorological optics, meteorological optical phenomenon, optical phenomena similar to crepuscular rays, but appear opposite the Sun in the sky. Anticrepuscular rays are essentially parallel (geometry), parallel, but appear to converge toward the antisolar point, the vanishing point, due to a visual illusion from linear perspective. Anticrepuscular rays are most frequently visible around dawn or dusk. This is because the atmospheric light scattering by particles, light scattering that makes them visible (backscattering) is larger for low angles to the horizon than most other angles. Anticrepuscular rays are dimmer than crepuscular rays because backscattering is less than forward scattering. Anticrepuscular rays can be continuous with crepuscular rays, curving across the whole sky in great circles.Lynch, D. K., & Livingston, W. (1995). Color and light in nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mountain shadow A common examp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sunlight
Sunlight is the portion of the electromagnetic radiation which is emitted by the Sun (i.e. solar radiation) and received by the Earth, in particular the visible spectrum, visible light perceptible to the human eye as well as invisible infrared (typically perceived by humans as warmth) and ultraviolet (which can have physiological effects such as sunburn) lights. However, according to the American Meteorological Society, there are "conflicting conventions as to whether all three [...] are referred to as light, or whether that term should only be applied to the visible portion of the spectrum." Upon reaching the Earth, sunlight is light scattering by particles, scattered and attenuation, filtered through the atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere as daylight when the Sun is above the horizon. When direct solar radiation is not blocked by clouds, it is experienced as sunshine, a combination of bright light and radiant heat (atmospheric). When cloud cover, blocked by clouds or dif ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rayleigh Scattering
Rayleigh scattering ( ) is the scattering or deflection of light, or other electromagnetic radiation, by particles with a size much smaller than the wavelength of the radiation. For light frequencies well below the resonance frequency of the scattering medium (normal dispersion relation, dispersion regime), the amount of scattering is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the wavelength (e.g., a blue color is scattered much more than a red color as light propagates through air). The phenomenon is named after the 19th-century British physicist Lord Rayleigh (John William Strutt). Rayleigh scattering results from the electric polarizability of the particles. The oscillating electric field of a light wave acts on the charges within a particle, causing them to move at the same frequency. The particle, therefore, becomes a small radiating dipole whose radiation we see as scattered light. The particles may be individual atoms or molecules; it can occur when light travels throu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wavelength
In physics and mathematics, wavelength or spatial period of a wave or periodic function is the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. In other words, it is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same ''phase (waves), phase'' on the wave, such as two adjacent crests, troughs, or zero crossings. Wavelength is a characteristic of both traveling waves and standing waves, as well as other spatial wave patterns. The multiplicative inverse, inverse of the wavelength is called the ''spatial frequency''. Wavelength is commonly designated by the Greek letter lambda (''λ''). For a modulated wave, ''wavelength'' may refer to the carrier wavelength of the signal. The term ''wavelength'' may also apply to the repeating envelope (mathematics), envelope of modulated waves or waves formed by Interference (wave propagation), interference of several sinusoids. Assuming a sinusoidal wave moving at a fixed phase velocity, wave speed, wavelength is inversely proportion ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Light Scattering By Particles
Light scattering by particles is the process by which small particles (e.g. ice crystals, dust, atmospheric particulates, cosmic dust, and blood cells) light scattering, scatter light causing optical phenomena such as the Rayleigh scattering, blue color of the sky, and halo (optical phenomenon), halos. Maxwell's equations are the basis of theoretical and computational methods describing light scattering, but since exact solutions to Maxwell's equations are only known for selected particle geometries (such as spherical), light scattering by particles is a branch of computational electromagnetics dealing with electromagnetic radiation scattering and absorption by particles. In case of shape, geometries for which analytical solutions are known (such as spheres, cluster of spheres, infinite cylinder (geometry), cylinders), the solutions are typically calculated in terms of series (mathematics)#Infinite series, infinite series. In case of more complex geometries and for inhomogeneous p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Noon
Noon (also known as noontime or midday) is 12 o'clock in the daytime. It is written as 12 noon, 12:00 m. (for '' meridiem'', literally 12:00 midday), 12 p.m. (for ''post meridiem'', literally "after midday"), 12 pm, or 12:00 (using a 24-hour clock) or 1200 ( military time). Solar noon is the time when the Sun appears to contact the local celestial meridian. This is when the Sun reaches its apparent highest point in the sky, at 12 noon apparent solar time and can be observed using a sundial. The local or clock time of solar noon depends on the date, longitude, and time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ..., with Daylight Saving Time tending to place solar noon closer to 1:00pm. Etymology The word ''noon'' is derived from Latin ''nona hora'', the ninth c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Particulates
Particulate matter (PM) or particulates are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspension (chemistry), suspended in the atmosphere of Earth, air. An ''aerosol'' is a mixture of particulates and air, as opposed to the particulate matter alone, though it is sometimes defined as a subset of aerosol terminology. Sources of particulate matter can be natural or anthropogenic hazard, anthropogenic. Particulates have impacts on climate and precipitation that adversely affect human health. Types of atmosphere, atmospheric particles include suspended particulate matter; thoracic and respirable particles; inhalable coarse particles, designated PM, which are granularity, coarse particles with a particle size, diameter of 10 micrometre, micrometers (μm) or less; fine particles, designated PM, with a diameter of 2.5 μm or less; ultrafine particles, with a diameter of 100 nm or less; and soot. Airborne particulate matter is a List of IARC Group 1 carcinogens, Group ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dusk
Dusk occurs at the darkest stage of twilight, or at the very end of astronomical twilight after sunset and just before nightfall.''The Random House College Dictionary'', "dusk". At predusk, during early to intermediate stages of twilight, enough light in the sky under clear conditions may occur to read outdoors without artificial illumination; however, at the end of civil twilight (when Earth rotates to a point at which the center of the Sun's disk is 6° below the local horizon), such lighting is required to read outside. The term ''dusk'' usually refers to astronomical dusk, or the darkest part of twilight before night begins. Technical definitions The time of dusk is the moment at the very end of astronomical twilight, just before the minimum brightness of the night sky sets in, or may be thought of as ''the darkest part of evening twilight''. However, technically, the three stages of dusk are as follows: *At civil dusk, the center of the Sun's disc goes 6° below the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |