glory
Sign in to saveAlso known as Buddha's light
optical phenomenon that resembles an iconic saint's halo about the shadow of the observer's head
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- Solar glory from Crib Goch 1.jpg
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- Commons category
- Glories
- exact match
- purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ENVO_01001016
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Article
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. The glory consists of one or more concentric, successively dimmer rings, each of which is red on the outside and bluish towards the centre. Due to its appearance, the phenomenon is sometimes mistaken for a circular rainbow, but the latter has a much larger diameter and is caused by different physical processes.