False dawn is caused by the scattering of sunlight by dust particles near the plane of the ecliptic.
What do we see in today’s NASA image?
The annual Eta Deloi meteor shower occurs when the planet Earth passes through the remnants of Halley’s Comet in its orbit around the Sun. This year, the peak of the Eta Delavi meteor shower coincided with the presence of the May full moon in the sky, which prevented more meteors from being seen. Of course, at the end of the period of this meteor shower in the early hours of the morning, the sky was empty of moonlight.
Today’s image is a composite of images taken from April 28 to May 8, 2022, of the precipitation source in the constellation Aquarius over San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. This image shows approximately 90 of Eta Deloi’s meteors. The central arc of the Milky Way is visible in the southern hemisphere sky before sunrise
The dim band that appeared on the horizon is called “False Morning” or “Zodiacal Light”. This light is caused by the scattering of sunlight by dust particles near the plane of the ecliptic. Along the ecliptic and the light of the ecliptic are the bright planets Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn. However, it was recently discovered that Mars itself is a possible source of dust along the ecliptic that causes the zodiacal light.
