A sunbeam, in meteorological optics, is a beam of sunlight that appears to radiate from the position of the Sun. Shining through openings in clouds or between other objects such as mountains and buildings, these beams of particle-scattered sunlight are essentially parallel shafts separated by darker shadowed volumes. Their apparent convergence in the sky is a visual illusion from linear perspective. The same illusion causes the apparent convergence of parallel lines on a long straight road or hallway at a distant vanishing point. The scattering particles that make sunlight visible may be air molecules or particulates.
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In this Dossier
Sunbeam in the context of Light beam
A light beam or beam of light is a directional projection of light energy radiating from a light source. Sunlight forms a light beam (a sunbeam) when filtered through media such as clouds, foliage, or windows. To artificially produce a light beam, a lamp and a parabolic reflector is used in many lighting devices such as spotlights, car headlights, PAR Cans, and LED housings. Light from certain types of laser has the smallest possible beam divergence.
Sunbeam in the context of Crepuscular rays
Crepuscular rays, sometimes colloquially referred to as god rays, are sunbeams that originate when the Sun appears to be just above or below a layer of clouds, during the twilight period. Crepuscular rays are noticeable when the contrast between light and dark is most obvious. Crepuscular comes from the Latin word crepusculum, meaning "twilight". Crepuscular rays usually appear orange because the path through the atmosphere at dawn and dusk passes through up to 40 times as much air as rays from a high Sun at noon. Particles in the air scatter short-wavelength light (blue and green) through Rayleigh scattering much more strongly than longer-wavelength yellow and red light.
Crepuscular rays appear as divergent beams emanating from a distant source, in spite of the rays from the Sun being parallel when they arrive, because of perspective. The point from which the divergent rays appear to emerge from is really a vanishing point for parallel rays of sunlight.