May 30, 2024
The cosmos is full of spectacular things: ringed planets, exploding suns, rivers of stars across the night.
A Lunar Corona over Paris
Birthday · May 30, 2024
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
Free PNG · 1080 × 1350 · No account needed
Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.
Date & occasion only
Change the year
APOD published May 30, 2024. Credit: Valter Binotto. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Why does a cloudy moon sometimes appear colorful? The effect, called a lunar corona, is created by the quantum mechanical diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly-transparent cloud. Since light of different colors has different wavelengths, each color diffracts differently. Lunar coronae are one of the few quantum mechanical color effects that can be easily seen with the unaided eye. Solar coronae are also sometimes evident. The featured image was taken last month from Paris, France. The blue beacon emanating from the Eiffel Tower did not affect the colorful lunar corona. Portal Universe: Random APOD Generator
Image credit: Valter Binotto