Earth & SkyGreek → English
Chromosphere
/ˈkroʊməsfɪər/noun
The thin reddish layer of the sun's atmosphere above the photosphere.
The Greek roots
χρῶμα
chrôma
colour
σφαῖρα
sphaîra
ball, globe
Literally: “colour sphere”
The story of the word
Norman Lockyer named it in 1868, after eclipse observers kept reporting the same rose-coloured fringe around the blacked-out sun. He named it for what the eye sees; the colour comes from hydrogen emitting at 656 nanometres. The same year, working the same solar spectrum, he found a line that belonged to no known element and called it helium.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1868
Same family
chromaticchromosomemonochromephotosphere
In a sentence
For two seconds at totality the chromosphere flashed pink along the moon's edge.