Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Three Suns


As I drove to the work one morning a few weeks ago, I observed some quite strange but beautiful atmospheric effects in the sky. The sun appeared almost vertical, and multiplied (!), and there seemed to be some kind of huge frosted rainbow. It was very odd but very beautiful. I told some people at the office, but nobody had seen it, and they looked at me with the usual "here he goes again" look in their eyes.

But the next morning I was vindicated! The thing was on the Swedish News. The phenomenon is called Tre Solar (Three Suns) in Swedish, and Halo in English. It is caused by a combination of a particular solstice, ice crystals in the atmosphere, and very low atmospheric temperatures. Apparently it is a quite rare phenomenon.

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