The setting seems stark in the midday sun, but when the sun drops and the light shifts, a form of alchemy transforms the scene into one of sensual beauty.
Several hours later, in the honey-dipped low light of the midnight sun, a polar bear was spotted on an ice floe, finishing his dinner.
Japanese space agency (Jaxa) scientists want to detect a measurable acceleration in the spacecraft as photons - the particles of light - from the Sun fall on the roughly 200-sq-m, ultra-thin sheet.
But it will not be, because the planets in question will all be on the far side of the sun, whose light will drown them out (except for Mars, which will be visible briefly after sunset).
And, of course, there were the girls dressed in honour of St Lucia, who is the patron saint of light and vision and is thus much celebrated in a place where the winter sun barely rises above the horizon.
Indeed, some at the meeting argued that if aliens were to use an astronomical phenomenon called gravitational lensing (in which the gravitational field of the sun bends and amplifies radio waves and light from Earth), human signals could be amplified to the point where even the light from cities would be visible.
ECONOMIST: An argument over whether to send messages to aliens
It was late in the afternoon, the sun just going down over the fields, the last of the light filtering through the trees and shrubs along the road by the old hospital.
Astronomers detected the new planet as it crossed the face of the distant "sun", dimming the star's light as it passed in front.
The action of ultra-violet light from the sun on a molecule called 7-dehydrocholesterol, found in the skin, turns it into the vitamin.
In the Bolivian Andes, ice-blue glaciers crown amphitheatres of peaks, llamas graze quietly in the afternoon sun and the evening light fades into frigid mountain nights.
The sun is a pale smudge in the sky, a pinhole promise of light and warmth, as we lurch and bump across the frozen land in pursuit.
Most of what we get is synthesized in the skin as it absorbs the sun's ultraviolet light.
The sun, you see, was unfair competition to the candle makers in the provision of light.
"I don't see much evidence that any of them have overdone it in the sun, " he says, recommending a tinted moisturizer for light but effective coverage and luminosity.
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