Iridescences

Iridescence (also known as goniochromism) is generally known as the property of certain surfaces that appear to change color as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes. Iridescence is commonly seen in items such as soap bubbles, butterfly wings, and sea shells.

Iridescence is everywhere in the world and is, IMO, one of the best optic phenomenon I ever seen:

In the clouds....








Source: thelivingmoon

In the animal kingdom...

The unique properties of iridescent colours - such as the ability to produce any visible hue without the presence of pigments, the directionality and flashiness of these colours and the polarization of light reflected from some iridescent objects - continue to draw the attention of scientists from traditionally disparate fields.

Optical physicists seek to understand the materials and structural arrangements that produce iridescence and are responsible for the complex colour spectra measured from iridescent surfaces.
Developmental biologists are just beginning to understand how organisms build the complicated, periodic structures required to produce iridescence. Evolutionary biologists wonder how iridescent traits originated, how they evolved over time, and what current function iridescent colours may have in the organisms that produce it.

Despite these long-standing interests in iridescent colours, a number of fundamental questions regarding their measurement, function, development, and evolution remain largely unexplored. However, much progress has been made in recent years from an eclectic array of scientific backgrounds.

Source: Journal of the Royal Society


Magnificent Hummingbird from a trip to Arizona.
Source: Pentaxforums


Source


Source: Peter C Fisher gallery


Coral snake
Source: Amoghavarsha

In the vegetal kingdom...


Microsorum Thailandicum
Source

In minerals....


Oil on water
Source: Peter C Fisher gallery


Source: Peter C Fisher gallery


Bismuth crystal with a thin layer of iridescent oxide on its surface
Source: wikipedia


Bournite iridescence
Source: Wikipedia

In human creations...




Iridescent glass mosaic
Source

Nice. Timely too. I just saw one this past weekend. It looked very close to your third picture. It was in the western sky of Colorado, about an hour before sunset.

Thanks for posting these beautiful pics.

reply to post by elevenaugust


love anything iredescent. very beautiful

I like this topic, if I may post a poem I wrote about it a while back?

Illuminated imagery in illogical incantations, it's incandescence ignites imagination.

Radiant repitition reveals rainbows running rampant, reckless reinterpretations reenact radical reading rampages.

Indescribably I've interested id, inescapable inotations illude incorrect interpretations.

Definite descriptions, deceitful definitions, dormant declarations do dance decoratively.

Energetically entering egos entertaining everyone.

Stoicly speaking simply saying something seems similar, singing silly sentences.

Colliquially common catch-phrases continue, crazy calamities conected.

Even equal etches evade every encouter easily.

Nimble notation narrows numbered names.

Calmly counting crooked communications, correlated crossed conjectures.

Empty endings.

If the poem confuses you try it like this, Iridescence is a form of making colours appear without pigmentation, when investigated for 'what makes the colour?' then you'll only find "Empty Endings" because there isn't pigmentation to make the colours that way. Light makes it that fashion!

Where did light come from?

Yes, the Earth is fragile and all that glitters is not gold, some of the animals that produce iridescent colours are as important as the ones in the deep blue sea that produce bio-luminescence! For different reasons of course, I'm merely trying to compare the two for a sixty-degree angle of human understanding of why we have pigmentation in ourselves, rather than iridescent colouring or bio-luminescence (though wouldn't either be exciting!?).

reply to post by elevenaugust


The golden mole was recently discovered to be iridescent as well.
It's the first mammal known to be iridescent.



www.abovetopsecret.com...

Aside from the “eye shine” of nocturnal mammals, seen when a headlight or flashlight strikes their eyes, the discovery marks the first known instance of iridescence in a mammal. The findings, published in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters, reveal yet another surprise: the golden moles are completely blind, so they cannot even see their gorgeous fur.

So who will be the first so say it's HAARP action?

That's weird....I've seen HARRP giving off the same colors right before an EQ. Not unless...these clouds do this on their own before an EQ event....

Beautiful thread OP! I use to think it was Heaven when I was a kid.

Source