[Physics] Why are there rings (halos) around street lights? Especially when it’s foggy

opticsvisible-lightwaves

I was in a car that was turned off last night for some time and the windows became foggy via condensation (moisture droplets building up on one side of window). Looking outside, I could see that street lights which were near me had a halo or a ring around them. They would disappear if I wiped the moisture from the window. Why do I see halos around light through a foggy glass?

Also, after stepping outside I DID notice a ring around the street light, but it had a larger diameter and it was VERY faint. Why does this light effect occur even without a foggy window? What is going on?

Thank you.

Best Answer

The very fine droplets on the window act as a diffraction grating. In principle, a single droplet would produce (very faintly) something called an "Airy's disk" pattern. If they are all the same size, and the light is monochromatic, these will add constructively to make a clear ring. But in reality the droplets are many different sizes, and the light is not monochromatic. Consequently what you see is the sum of many of these patterns summed, each of a different size: this is the halo you see.

The faint ring you saw when you stepped out of the car may have a different origin. It may be that you had very small droplets on your glasses (did you step out of an airconditioned car into a humid night?), or it may be there were other objects (small droplets from fog beginning to form?) that were generating this pattern. The smaller the spheres, the larger the ring. The more uniform the spheres, the more it looks like a ring rather than a disk.

Related Question