Fig. 2: A faint yet discernible glory in a satellite image of marine Sc west of Baja, CA, taken on May 29, 2021,~13:30 local time, by a moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the Aqua satellite.

a True color image, projected on the Google Earth platform, where a faint glory is discernible near the center and the blue line is the nadir track of Aqua. b Subtracting the red from the blue channel amplifies the glory. Clouds are white because their red and blue reflectances are similar but the difference image captures wavelength-dependent features such as the glory. For the lower part of the glory, despite the clouds there being optically thin, single scattering, causing the glory, displays the first ring, the central backscatter, and a weaker second red ring. The shape of the glory ring permits a geometric estimate of droplet sizes that is tolerant of imperfections in the instrument’s calibration and is apparent even for the thinnest clouds. Moreover, the elongation induced by the satellites motion, allows for a broader usage of glory information that could be used to invert droplet properties over wider portion of the cloud field. c Reflectance measured by the MODIS red channel (filter range: 620–670 nm) across the glory as demarcated by the magenta box in b. The glory’s signal is evident on either side of the exact backscatter peak, allowing for angular size and related magnitudes conversion to the droplets average diameter and its variance (see Methods).