An Airplane Glory

Explanation: Looking out the window of an airplane, you might be lucky enough to see “the glory” in the direction directly opposite the Sun. Before airplanes , the phenomenon, known to some as the heiligenschein or the Specter of the Brocken , was sometimes seen from mountaintops. There, when conditions were right, one could look away from the Sun and see what appeared to be the shadow of a giant surrounded by a bright halo . The giant turns out to be the observer, as in the modern version a silhouette of an airplane frequently occupies the glory's center. This bright glory was photographed two weeks ago over Michigan from an airplane on approach to O'Hare International Airport . The cause of the glory is still being researched and is relatively complex . Surely, small droplets of water in some way reflect, refract, and diffract sunlight backwards towards the Sun . The phenomenon has similar counterparts in other branches of science including astronomy , where looking out from the Earth in the direction opposite the Sun yields a bright spot called the gegenschein .