Over the centuries, countless individuals have been fooled into thinking the Zodiacal Light was the first vestige of morning twilight. In fact, the great twelfth-century Persian astronomer, mathematician, and poet Omar Khayyam even made reference to this "false dawn" in his poem, The Rubaiyat.

It was once thought to be solely an atmospheric phenomenon, perhaps reflected sunlight shining on the very high atmosphere of Earth; but we now know that, while it indeed involves reflected sunlight, it's being reflected not off our atmosphere, but rather off the debris left over from the formation of the planets some 4.5 billion years ago.

The distribution of these countless billions of particles—ranging from meter-sized mini-asteroids to microscopic dust grains—appears to be densest in the immediate vicinity of the sun but extends outward beyond the orbit of Mars all along the ecliptic plane. This plane is defined by the Earth's orbit around the sun, and the ecliptic—conversely—is the yearly path the sun appears to take through our sky. It is along this path the ancient astrologers and poets established the constellations of the Zodiac, and it is against these figures the Zodiacal Light appears, hence the name.