Thread | Brutkey

The pink glow of the "Belt of Venus" surrounds ESO’s Paranal Observatory during a Chilean sunset.

The "Belt of Venus" appears as a pinkish glow just before sunrise or just after sunset over the horizon on the opposite side of the Sun. Below it is the dark band caused by the shadow of the Earth.

The name alludes to the cestus, a girdle or breast-band, of the Ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite, customarily equated with the Roman goddess Venus.

https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2548a/
📷 J. Looten/ESO
1/n

Before the night emerges, ESO’s Paranal Observatory glows in the colourful light of the Chilean sunset. Today’s Picture of the Week was taken by French photographer Julien Looten, who captured the Very Large Telescope (VLT) right as the Sun set, creating a pinkish band — the Venus belt.

The Venus belt, unlike the name suggests, is not related to the planet Venus. It is an atmospheric phenomenon caused by the scattering of the Sun’s light when it either rises or sets, visible on the opposite side of the sky. As sunlight reaches the far end of the atmosphere, small particles scatter it back towards the observer, creating a pinkish band. The dark band right below it is the shadow of the Earth cast on to the sky as the Sun sinks below the horizon on the opposite side.

Looten caught this moment in a panorama right after sunset, before the arrival of the night when “the excitement was at its peak”, he explains. The same way the photographer prepared to capture the clearest night skies above the Chilean Atacama Desert, the telescopes of the Paranal Observatory got ready to observe the mysteries of the cosmos.

Credit: J. Looten/ESO