In the “Pale Blue Dot” photo why is earth “suspended in a sun beam”?

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the way I imagine it the sun is emitting light from all angles at all times. Why did the photo have streaks of light? I assume this is because of the camera but it has multiple pilers of light so I am confused. maybe because the sun doesn’t emit the same amount of light from each area depending on flares? I am tagging this physics but if people think that this is more engineering I’ll change it.

In: Physics

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

You’re way overthinking this. It’s just a lens flare from the camera. The sun doesn’t emit “streaks” or “lines” of light like that. The sun emits the same amount of light in all directions. It’s purely a mechanical artifact of the camera, it has nothing to do with the sun.

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