This includes, among other things, a sometimes visible ring around the sun, which is mistakenly called a rainbow by some and interpreted by others as a heavenly sign - but only the name is heavenly, because it is a halo, in German: halo, or more soberly a light halo . We were sent this pretty picture, along with the question whether it was a rainbow:

Rainbow? No!
Rainbow? No!

This phenomenon differs from rainbows in that the former are only visible when it rains and are visible in the opposite direction to the sun, but this circle sometimes forms around the sun in good weather or in fog.

How is a halo created?

It should be said that there is not just one, but over 50 different types of halos (except for the computer game of the same name), mostly in the shape of a circle around the sun or moon, semicircles, columns of light or arcs.

But all halos have one thing in common: They are created by light refraction in ice crystals at an altitude of 5,000 to 13,000 meters. If they are clustered there, namely in thin cirrus clouds that are often not even visible to the naked eye, there is a good chance of seeing a halo.

An English proverb says “ ring around the moon means rain soon ”, and in German “Ring around the moon means rain soon”, and there is a bit of truth to that, because high cirrus clouds often, but not always, indicate a change in the weather there.

When and where can I see a halo?

For this to happen, not only the weather conditions have to be right (clear sky, ice crystals at high altitude), but also the location: Since the ice crystals have to have a certain orientation, a halo can be visible to one person and to another person a few hundred meters is further away, again not.

Halos around the sun and moon are regularly seen in winter, most frequently in spring and autumn, and rarely in midsummer. However, there are no direct statistics on this, and due to the unpredictability of how ice crystals align, there are of course no predictions, only probabilities.

You can often see halos in countries with very cold winters, but you can also see a halo here and there, even in early summer.

Conclusion: Some halos look fascinating, sometimes even like a huge eye, but despite the holy name, they are “just” a special celestial phenomenon. You can find more images of halos on 123rf , Kachelmannwetter or EarthSky .

A variation of the halos are the so-called parasols, which we report on here:


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )