This Monday, Fanny Agostini invites you to take advantage of the exceptional atmospheric conditions, in particular because of the confinement, to try to find in the sky the zodiacal light. A rare spectacle, which can only be seen twice a year.
Fanny, you tell us that this period of confinement makes our sky clearer at night and that we can see the stars as rarely we can observe them!
So let's take advantage of it, let's take advantage of the fact that road traffic has really slowed down, reducing the discharge of nitrogen dioxide across Europe. The result is an improvement in the transparency of the atmosphere. Added to the slowdown in air traffic, which clogs the sky and favorable weather with few clouds, the conditions for observing the sky are excellent.
One way to occupy our long evenings of confinement, let's raise our heads to the sky. You challenge us, Fanny, to identify the zodiacal light.
It is a spectacle that only occurs twice a year, in the fall and now, in early April, when meteorite and ice grain debris from asteroids or comets will follow. the same trajectory. The light emitted by all this dust will pass through the constellation of the zodiac, hence the name of zodiacal light. A very stealthy phenomenon, see invisible when pollution is present in the atmosphere, but potentially well discernible in the coming days. It looks like a pretty wonderful milky light triangle, as the light of a lighthouse in the distance could do, but there it goes very high in the sky. A gigantic beam of particles traveling millions of kilometers away.
No need of an instrument to see this light?
You just have to watch the setting sun and have a balcony which gives access to a clear view to the West. If this were not the case, you have plenty of time to enjoy the stars and play with your children to recognize the constellations. It is the kind of pleasure which we deprived ourselves by clouding the sky with our various and varied discharges, and which confinement allows us to taste again.