glory

glory

[′glȯ·rē]

(optics)

A set of concentric, colored rings of light around the shadow cast by an observer or his head onto a cloud or fog bank.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

glory

glory

The luminous halo encircling the head of a sacred person and the radiance or luminous emanation encompassing the whole.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

glory

A ring of colors surrounding the shadow of an aircraft in flight onto a cloud layer. While it is visible from the air when the aircraft is at a suitable angle, it can be observed from an elevated position on the ground if the sun casts a shadow of the observer onto a layer of low-lying mist or fog. Also called a broken specter or a corona. See also broken specter and corona.

An Illustrated Dictionary of Aviation Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Glory

 

an optical phenomenon of the atmosphere, consisting of colored rings around the shadow of the observer (or the shadow of an object near him), which falls on a cloud or a layer of mist. Glories are often observed in the mountains (where clouds are situated lower than the observer) or on flights above the clouds. The colors of a glory are distributed so that the inner ring is bluish and the outer, red. This is explained by the diffraction of light. A precise theory governing this phenomenon has not yet been developed.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.