This is one of the most popular riddles which has been posted and circulated by people on the internet.
The overwhelming majority give the answer as a rose.
However, a clear explanation appears elusive for many people.
The connection in the riddle appears to be varied enough to support a number of possibilities.
The Moon or Moonlight
When it’s dark at night, one of the brightest things that one sees is the moon.
So, the answer could be the moon. This is the easiest answer since it corresponds to a very common experience.
However, we may not confine ourselves to the moon because there are other celestial objects which may not be obvious to a lot of people.
For example, 6 planets are occasionally viewable in the sky with NASA predicting certain appearance dates in 2022.
- Mercury makes its evening appearances on certain dates like starting April 18 to May 10.
- Venus will make a very brilliant viewing on February 13.
- Mars gives its vivid appearances on New Year’s Day with its characteristic yellow-orange hue.
- Jupiter, the largest planet, makes a bright impression from August 22.
- Saturn, which often appears like a yellow-white star, also makes its appearance on New Year’s Day with its distinct rings.
- Neptune a bluish-hued planet gives a peak appearance on the evenings of January all the way to February 25.
Some of these planets are only viewable by telescope but some like Venus or Uranus can be seen with the naked eye.
Of these 6 planets, Venus is the brightest which makes it the best candidate for this riddle. This is the planet Venus, which makes a bright appearance in the sky when dawn is nearing.
For this reason, it is also called the morning star. However, the morning star can also have a religious meaning.
For example, for people of the Christian faith, the morning star refers to Jesus who is also a symbol of light.
John 1 refers to Jesus as light in the darkness: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome”
Believers are therefore urged to look to Jesus, as a savior in times of bleakness or hopelessness.
Comets are also another answer. For example, the Halley’s Comet occasionally makes a fiery appearance in the skies.
But you have to be around for roughly at least 76 years because this comet makes it appear only once every 76 years!
Meteorites are much more frequent. Also known as shooting stars, these bright lights are guaranteed to appear on almost any night.
For someone in the polar regions, the aurora lights can be seen which is a bright light that gives the skies a brilliant hue.
Manmade lights
We can also have artificial light sources in darkness. For someone who is lost or hiking alone beside a dark road, the headlights of an oncoming car can be the answer to the riddle.
In some places, we can also have sky glows, which occur due to lights from advertisements or the reflection in the skies of city lights.
Satellites also appear as lights in the night sky. Some sources of lights are even mysterious. For example, numerous UFOs (unidentified flying objects) have been sighted and even captured on video.
There has been a renewed recent interest in these objects with the Pentagon launching new investigations in them after the military reported many recent events.
The Rose
As earlier pointed out, the rose has widely been given as the answer.
A white-colored rose is a symbol of purity or innocence.
Darkness stands for obscurity. Therefore, its opposite, light, can be represented by the rose.