Friday, March 28, 2008

A phenomenon you won't see in sunny Singapore, multiple suns! (video and pics)












I got this email about a phenomenon in Russia. Although unique it is not uncommon over there. They called it the icebow. It looks pretty cool.


Wikipedia has a description of it:

"An icebow is phenomenon similar to a rainbow except that it is formed by the refraction of sunlight through cloud suspended ice crystals as opposed to raindrops or other liquid water suspended in the air. Generally the appearance is as arc sections as opposed to a full circle. Brighter sections usually occur above, below, and lateral to the center (where the sun is visible). These bright areas are referred to as "sun dogs," "parhelia" (plural), or mock suns because of their bright appearance and possible confusion with the actual location of the sun. Those icebows that are caused by very small ice crystals are one colour, because diffraction blurs the colours together. A 22 degree icebow has red on the inside and blue on the outside.

A diffraction disc or Airy disc has similar appearance, but is a disk, rather than a ring, and has a red border on the inside. Its size depends on the size of the ice or water particles that cause it. These are also known as coronas, but are not to be confused with the thin streaming luminous gas that makes up the sun's own corona."

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