History
Previously, it was believed that zodiacal light was just the atmosphere of the sun. According to the 1728 Cyclopaedia:
- "The zodiacal light is nothing but the solar atmosphere, a rare and subtile fluid, either luminous by itself, or made so by the rays of the sun surrounding its globe; but in a greater quantity, and more extensively, about its equator, than any other."
The phenomenon of zodiacal light was first investigated by the astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1683 and first explained by Nicolas Fatio de Duillier in 1684. The glow was first correctly identified as being due to scattered sunlight from dust particles in the solar system by Joshua Childrey in 1661.
Read more about this topic: Zodiacal Light
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“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
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