Earth's shadow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Earth's shadow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Earth's shadow or Earth shadow (also sometimes known as the

dark segment) are names for the shadow that the Earth itself casts on its
atmosphere. This shadow is often visible from the surface of the Earth,
as a dark band in the sky near the horizon. This atmospheric
phenomenon can sometimes be seen twice a day, around the times of
sunset and sunrise.
Whereas the phenomenon of night (a function of being in the shadow of
the Earth) is very familiar to all, the effect of the Earth's shadow on the
atmosphere is quite often visible in the sky, and yet often goes
unrecognized. This shadow is visible to observers as it falls on the
atmosphere of the Earth during the twilight hours. When the weather
conditions and the observer's viewing point permit a clear sight of the
horizon, the shadow can be seen as a dark blue or greyish-blue band.
Assuming the sky is clear, the Earth's shadow is visible in the opposite
half of the sky to the sunset or sunrise, and is seen right above the
horizon as a dark blue band. A related phenomenon is the "Belt of
Venus" or "anti-twilight arch" (sometimes written as "antitwilight arch"),
a pink band that is visible above the dark blue of the Earth's shadow, in
the same part of the sky. No defined line divides the Earth's shadow and
the Belt of Venus; one colored band blends into the other in the sky.

Earth's shadow and Belt of Venus at

sunrise, seen over a horizon where the
sea meets the sky, looking west from
Twin Peaks, San Francisco. Note: the
lowest blue-grey area is not the sky
but the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

Contents
1 Appearance
2 Belt of Venus
2.1 Color
3 Color of lunar eclipses
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

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Appearance
The Earth's shadow (as it is cast onto the atmosphere) can be
observed during the twilight hours, assuming the sky is clear and
the horizon is relatively unobstructed. At sunset the Earth's shadow
is visible opposite the sunset in the eastern sky, just above the
horizon. The shadow shows as a dark blue band that stretches over
180 of the horizon.[1][2] It is most noticeable at the antisolar point,
exactly opposite the sunset.
At sunrise, the Earth's shadow is seen in a similar way, but in the
western sky. The Earth's shadow is best observed when there is a
low horizon (such as over the sea), and when the sky conditions are
very clear. In addition, the higher up an observer is standing to view
the horizon, the sharper the shadow appears.[1][2]
At sunrise, the Earth's shadow can be seen to set as the sun itself

Earth's shadow and Belt of Venus at sunset,

looking east from the Marin Headlands just
north of San Francisco in October 2010.
(Note: there is a thin greyish cloud layer
partially obscuring the horizon in this
image.)

rises, and at sunset, the Earth's shadow rises as the sun sets.[1]

Belt of Venus
In the right viewing conditions, a pink (or orange or purple) band is
visible in the twilight sky just above the dark blue band of the
Earth's shadow. This pink band is called the "anti-twilight arch" or
"Belt of Venus". The name "Belt of Venus" is not connected with
the planet Venus; the Belt of Venus is part of Earth's upper
atmosphere which is illuminated by the setting or rising sun. It is
visible either after the sun ceases to be visible (at sunset) or before
the sun becomes visible (at sunrise).[1][2]
The Belt of Venus is quite a different phenomenon from the
afterglow, which appears in the geometrically opposite part of the
sky.

Color

Full moon rising, as seen through the Belt

of Venus. A very small part of the Earth's
shadow (dark blue) is also visible in this
image, but the horizon here is too high for
more of the Earth's shadow to be seen.

When the sun is near the horizon at sunset or sunrise, the light from
the sun is red; this is because the light is reaching the observer
through an especially thick layer of the atmosphere, which works as a filter, scattering all but the red light.

From the viewpoint of the observer, the red sunlight directly illuminates small particles in the lower atmosphere
on the other side of the sky from the sun. The red light is backscattered to the observer, and that is why the Belt
of Venus appears pink.
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The lower the sunset sun descends, the less clearly distinguished the boundary between the Earth's shadow and
Belt of Venus becomes. This is because now the setting sun illuminates a thinner part of the upper atmosphere.
The red light is not scattered there because there are fewer particles, and the eye only sees the "normal" (usual)
blue sky, which is due to Rayleigh scattering from air molecules. Eventually, both the Earth's shadow and the
Belt of Venus dissolve into the darkness of the night sky.[2]

Color of lunar eclipses

The Earth's shadow or umbra is as curved as the planet Earth is, and it
extends 1.4 million kilometers into space (the antumbra, however, extends
indefinitely). When the Sun, the Earth and the Moon are aligned perfectly
(or almost perfectly), with the Earth in between the Sun and the Moon, the
Earth's shadow falls onto the surface of the Moon which is facing the night
side of the Earth, such that observers see the shadow gradually turn the
bright full Moon dark, and then light again, creating a lunar eclipse.
During a lunar eclipse, a very small amount of light from the sun does
however still reach the Moon, even when the lunar eclipse is total; this is
light which has been refracted or bent as it passes through the Earth's
atmosphere. This sunlight has been scattered by the dust in the Earth's
atmosphere, and thus that light is red, in the same way that sunset and
sunrise light is red. This weak red illumination is what causes the eclipsed
Moon to be dimly reddish or copper-colored in appearance.[3]

A total lunar eclipse on February

21, 2008, shows the reddish light
falling on the moon's surface.

See also
Brocken spectre, the apparently enormous and magnified shadow of an observer cast upon the upper
surfaces of clouds opposite the sun

References
1. Les Cowley. "Earth's shadow". www.atoptics.co.uk.
2. "What causes layers in the sunrise and sunset?". earthsky.org.
3. David K. Lynch, William Charles Livingston (July 2001). Color and light in nature. Cambridge University Press; 2
edition. p. 38,39. ISBN 978-0-521-77504-5.

External links
Definition of "dark segment" (http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Dark_segment)
Image showing a much larger segment of the sky with dark segment and Belt of Venus
(http://www.perezmedia.net/beltofvenus/archives/000357.html)

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Categories: Atmospheric optical phenomena Shadows
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