Kepler-7b is to date the only exoplanet for which clouds have been inferred from the optical phase curve — from visible-wavelength whole-disk brightness measurements as a function of orbital phase.

At optical wavelengths, Titan’s brightness for large Sun-Titan-observer phase angles significantly exceeds its dayside brightness. The brightening that occurs near back-illumination is due to ...

For millennia, humanity has observed the changing phases of the Moon. The rise and fall of sunlight reflected off the Moon, as it presents its different faces to us, is known as a "phase curve".

The Bernese theoretical astrophysicist Kevin Heng has achieved a rare feat: On paper, he has derived novel solutions to an old mathematical problem needed to calculate light reflections from planets ...