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image credit & copyright: Stephen Bedingfield



you've probably seen a circle around the Sun before

more common than rainbows, ice halos, like a 22º degree circular halo for example, can be easy to spot, especially if you can shade your eyes from direct sunlight

still it's rare to see such a diverse range of ice halos, including sundogs, tangent, infralateral, and Parry arcs, all found in this snapshot from planet Earth

the picture was quickly taken in the late morning of september 4, 2018 from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada

the beautiful patterns are generated as sunlight (or moonlight) is reflected and refracted in six-sided water ice crystals in Earth's atmosphere

of course, atmospheric ice halos in the skies of other worlds are likely to be different



































in apod.nasa.gov/apod