The science behind natural optical phenomena—colors in the sky, rainbows, halos, coronas, iridescence, glories, glitter patterns and auroras—will be the topic of a free talk at Rochester Institute of ...

Optical illusions occur naturally in different habitats and conditions across the world. Cloud formations can sometimes make it seem like there's an ocean or a UFO in the sky. Whether it is salt flats ...

Earth's passage through the plane of Saturn's rings, occurring roughly every 15 years, causes the rings to appear nearly edge-on. The next such event in March 2025 will be poorly observable due to ...

Actually, make that a glory that's shaped like a heart! One of my favorite parts of meteorology is the great variety of optical phenomena produced by variations in temperature, density, humidity, ...

A new study explores the behavior of photons, the elementary particles of light, as they encounter boundaries where material properties change rapidly over time. This research uncovers remarkable ...

Nature is brimming with color in almost every season. While the majority of colors are matte, some are shiny. Evolutionary biologist Casper van der Kooi wondered why shiny colors are so rare. He ...

Magneto-optical effects in plasmonic nanostructures represent an exciting frontier in the convergence of photonics, nanomagnetism and materials science. By harnessing the strong local electromagnetic ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A optical illusion appeared off the First Coast this week, making it seem as though a ship was hovering above and out of the water. The phenomenon, known as a superior mirage, ...

Everyone loves an optical illusion — even if they leave us completely stumped — and they're all around us in the natural world. From an underwater waterfall in the Indian Ocean to a surrealist scene ...

Innsbruck physicists have presented a new architecture for improved quantum control of microwave resonators. In a study recently published in PRX Quantum, they show how a superconducting fluxonium ...