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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →You can’t see an exoplanet rainbow with your eyes, a backyard telescope or an ordinary photograph. Astronomers instead look for subtle changes in a planet’s light as it orbits its star, then test whether those changes fit a rainbow-related scattering effect. The leading reported example is a possible glory on WASP-76b—not a confirmed rainbow.
What “seeing” an exoplanet rainbow means
For an exoplanet, “see” means detect and interpret a pattern in light, not resolve a colored arc or cloud system. A planet is usually overwhelmed by the light of its host star, making direct imaging difficult. Astronomers therefore use measurements such as spectra and brightness changes across an orbit to learn about planetary atmospheres. NASA explains the main methods for finding and characterizing exoplanets, while NASA describes how Webb studies exoplanets.
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Rainbow or glory: what astronomers are looking for
A rainbow and a glory are related in that both involve light interacting with particles, but they are not the same optical effect. Rainbow colors arise as light refracts through a medium and different wavelengths bend by different amounts. A glory appears as colored concentric rings associated with diffraction and interference when light interacts with small particles under particular viewing geometry. ESA’s report on WASP-76b calls the proposed signal a potential glory, not an ordinary rainbow. ESA explains the distinction and the WASP-76b candidate.
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The possible glory on WASP-76b
WASP-76b is about 637 light-years away, according to the European Space Agency’s 2024 report. ESA described a possible glory based on observations from the Cheops spacecraft together with data from other ESA and NASA missions, including TESS, Hubble and Spitzer. The interpretation is not confirmed: ESA says a strong, localized, direction-dependent reflection could explain the signal.
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Cheops observed WASP-76b 23 times over three years in the study described by ESA. A brightness increase near the planet’s eastern terminator helped constrain the proposed signal. Those figures describe this study’s observations; they are not a general recipe or required observing schedule for finding such a feature.
Confirmation would matter because the effect could reveal properties of the planet’s clouds. ESA says the interpretation would point to spherical droplets that either persisted for at least three years or were replenished, with atmospheric conditions stable enough for the feature to remain observable. The cloud material is unknown; the candidate does not establish that the clouds are made of water.
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How astronomers search for rainbow-like scattering
Repeated brightness measurements across an orbit
Photometry measures how bright the star-and-planet system appears over time. As the planet moves through different orbital phases, the amount and direction of reflected light change. A localized reflective cloud could cause a distinctive brightness variation. Repeated measurements help distinguish a phase-dependent feature from noise or a one-off change. ESA reported that combined Cheops and TESS observations contributed to the WASP-76b analysis.
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Spectroscopy separates light by wavelength. During a transit, some starlight passes through the planet’s atmosphere, and gases can absorb particular wavelengths; reflected-light spectra can also help characterize a planet. These methods reveal clues in the light rather than a resolved view of colored clouds. NASA’s exoplanet-methods overview and Webb explainer describe spectroscopy and atmospheric observations.
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Polarimetry and spectropolarimetry
Polarimetry measures how light is polarized; spectropolarimetry tracks that polarization across wavelengths. Because scattering can change polarization, these measurements may help distinguish a scattering feature from other sources of brightness variation and constrain cloud properties. A 2023 study of a proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory considered polarized as well as unpolarized reflected-light features. It notes that some features may stand out more clearly in polarized light, even though the planet-to-star contrast is lower. The study discusses rainbow and ocean-glint observations alongside coronagraph limits.
Direct imaging with a coronagraph
A coronagraph blocks much of a star’s light so that nearby planets can be studied. Whether a planet can be separated from its star depends on the apparent distance between them and the instrument’s contrast and inner working angle—the smallest separation at which it can distinguish a planet from starlight. A direct image may yield a point of light or a spectrum, not a detailed, colored weather map. NASA explains the challenges of direct imaging in its overview of exoplanet detection and characterization.
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Why the viewing angle and clouds matter
A glory depends on alignment among the star’s illumination, cloud particles and observer. ESA’s account of a glory seen at Venus describes the Sun positioned directly behind the Venus Express spacecraft from the viewpoint of the clouds. For an exoplanet, the same basic geometry must line up with the observer at the right point in the orbit.
The particles matter too. ESA’s report quotes study lead author Olivier Demangeon: “First, you need atmospheric particles that are close-to-perfectly spherical, completely uniform and stable enough to be observed over a long time. The planet’s nearby star needs to shine directly at it, with the observer – here Cheops – at just the right orientation.” ESA describes the observed Venus glory and its alignment.
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How the observing approaches differ
| Approach | What it measures | Strength | Main constraint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phase-resolved photometry | Brightness changes over the orbit | Can reveal localized, direction-dependent reflection, as proposed for WASP-76b | Signals can be small and interpretation ambiguous; repeated observations help |
| Spectropolarimetry | Wavelength-dependent and polarization signatures in reflected light | Can help distinguish scattering behavior and constrain cloud properties | Planet light is faint, and useful viewing angles and contrast limit access |
| Direct imaging with a coronagraph | Planet light separated from starlight | Measures planet light without depending solely on a transit | Inner working angle and contrast can make relevant orbital phases inaccessible |
These are complementary scientific observing modes, not consumer ways to look through a telescope. A brightness pattern can flag a candidate; spectra and polarization can add clues about what produced it, while direct imaging is constrained by the planet’s apparent separation from its star.
Could future observatories catch more of them?
A 2023 study modeled whether rainbow-scattering angles could be reached by the proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory. In that study’s conventions, the scattering feature occurs away from quadrature, around a phase angle of 40 degrees. Access depends on the planet’s orbital inclination and the observatory’s coronagraph inner working angle.
The authors estimated that water-cloud rainbow phase angles could be accessible in about 28% of the target systems they modeled, under the paper’s assumptions. This is a modeled fraction of systems with potentially accessible viewing angles—not a prediction that 28% of planets have rainbows, and not a measure of a currently operating mission’s detection rate. Read the Habitable Worlds Observatory phase-angle study.
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