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 ...

Sun halos are an optical phenomena like sun dogs and sun pillars.

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 ...

MISSOULA, Mont. — While up in the mountains, have you ever looked down on a cloud or fog bank below and seen concentric rings of light surrounding your shadow? A viewer recently shared a photo of this ...

Nonlinear optical waveguide systems exploit the tight confinement of light in submicrometre structures to enhance light–matter interactions far beyond those achievable in bulk media. Central phenomena ...

Magneto-optical phenomena in X-ray and neutron scattering encompass a suite of techniques that exploit the interaction between electromagnetic radiation or neutron beams and the magnetic structure of ...

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 ...

Scientists have observed a new microscopic mechanism enabling precise control of the magneto-optical properties of excitons in alloys of two-dimensional semiconductors. This discovery opens up ...

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 ...