Personal Essays

Between the darkness of night and the early glow of morning twilight is a moment of faint glory. A false dawn can be seen on moonless nights in the three months surrounding the autumn equinox. It’s a tease. Looking like the glow of the sun slowly rising it reminds you that you’ve stayed up way too late. This cone of faint light, brighter than the Milky Way, is scattered sunlight, redirected by millions of tiny specks of dust between the inner planets. It has nothing to do with the stars really. Even its name rings hollow: zodiacal light. It lies coincidentally along the zodiac, the imaginary line that the planets traverse the celestial sky.