Zodiacal Light

International audienceThe zodiacal light is a faint veil of light covering the Earth’s sky. Brighter towards the Sun and the ecliptic, it originates in solar light scattered by a cloud of dust particles, mostly of cometary and asteroidal origin. The increase of brightness, toward the Sun and the near-ecliptic region, indicates an increase in the space density of the interplanetary dust cloud, which has a lenticular shape around the Sun; a slight brightness enhancement toward the antisolar region (gegenschein) corresponds to a backscattering effect. Thermal emission from the zodiacal particles forms, away from the galactic plane, the most prominent component in the near-infrared sky