zodiacal light
1
9.9
- noun
- /zoʊˈdaɪə.kəl laɪt/
- Specialized
:
luz zodiacal
- The zodiacal light appeared as a faint glow on the horizon right before sunrise.
- zodiacal light arises from sunlight
- faint zodiacal light
- evening zodiacal light
And equal night is the best time to see what's called the false dawn or the zodiacal light.
- And equal night is the best time to see what's called the false dawn or the zodiacal light.
Examples
-
Another interesting phenomenon to observe while you are out looking at the Moon and Venus is the zodiacal light.
Blog text (2) -
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Diagram showing the new asteroidal dust ring around the Sun near Earth detected from studying the zodiacal light.
Academic text (1994) -
Off to her left, the bright haze of the zodiacal light stretched like a thin arm across the sky.
Fiction book (2001) -
The Zodiacal light is produced by sunlight reflecting off tiny dust particles in the plane of the solar system.
Blog text (2) -
We see the Milky Way, too, and perhaps satellites, meteors, and zodiacal light.
Academic text (2000) -
Turning slowly, he saw the sun, strangely small and pale, with its arms of faint zodiacal light outstretched on either side of it.
Fiction book (2001) -
This is the zodiacal light, sunlight scattered from the cloud of dust particles orbiting in the plane of the planets.
Academic text (1994) -
The background light in space consists only of the zodiacal light and the light arising from the universe as a whole, representing the sum of all objects at all distances, most of them immensely great.
Academic text (1990) -
The zodiacal light stretched out from the Sun's middle clear across the width of the port; dust motes scattered the sunlight, leftovers from the solar system's early days of creation.
Fiction book (2001) -
The asteroid was visible to their naked eyes now, against the distant glow of the Sun's zodiacal light, a dumbbell-shaped dark mass tumbling slowly end over end.
Fiction book (2001)
Synonyms
A faint light in the night sky caused by chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere
How Bright
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun phrase is compositionally built: 'zodiacal' (pertaining to the zodiac/constellations) modifies 'light', so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to a kind of light associated with the zodiacal region of the sky. The precise astronomical details (faint cone-shaped band, ecliptic location, interplanetary dust) are specialist information not derivable from the words, but the core meaning is directly predictable from the constituents.
Etymology
The noun zodiacal light is named because this faint light appears along the zodiac, the band of stars the Sun and planets travel through. The glow comes from sunlight that bounces off tiny dust near that path, so the name helps you remember it means a soft light along the zodiac line.