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Blogs > loveisamyth > loveisamyth, stars are forever


loveisamyth 68M
849 posts
11/25/2015 9:15 am

Last Read:
11/27/2015 4:33 am
THANKSGIVING SKIES
Thanksgiving is the biggest travel holiday of the year in the United States. Millions of people board airplanes and fly long hours to visit friends and family. Dreading the trip? Think of it as a sky watching opportunity. There are some things you can see only through the window of an airplane, like this.



This is called "the glory", a bulls-eye of softly colored rings surrounding the shadow of the airplane cast on cloud tops.

Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley explains what causes it: "These rings are formed when light is scattered backwards by individual water droplets in the clouds. The more uniform the size of the droplets, the more rings you will see. They swell and contract as you travel over clouds with smaller or larger droplets."

In his article at Atmospheric Optics, Cowley describes even more things you can see through the airplane window. Happy Thanksgiving!

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