Ski resorts are one of the best places to see sun halos--rings of light that surround the sun when ice crystals fill the air. Spaceweather.com reader Julie Morris was skiing at the Snowbasin Resort in Huntsville, Utah, on Nov. 25th when she witnessed this incredible specimen:
"I had never seen anything like it," says Morris. "It lasted for more than 15 minutes, and other skiers stopped to photograph it as well. I was so glad that my iPhone photo turned out because my hands were numb and I also couldn't see that well because I had stared at the brightness for so long!"
Ordinary sun halos are caused by ice crystals floating high above Earth's surface in cirrus clouds. "Ski halos," on the other hand, are formed by ice crystals near the ground, kicked into the air by the action of skis and snow-making machines.
Ordinary sun halos are caused by ice crystals floating high above Earth's surface in cirrus clouds. "Ski halos," on the other hand, are formed by ice crystals near the ground, kicked into the air by the action of skis and snow-making machines.
"There were snow-making machines in operation at the time," says Morris. That's important because snow-making machines produce a very special type of ice. Crystals called "diamond dust" grow slowly downwind of ski-slope snow blowers. These man-made crystals tend to be more optically perfect than natural crystals in clouds, producing extra-bright, extra-sharp halos.
Morris's quick iPhone photo captured a rare variety of forms: a 22-degree halo, sundogs, sub-sundogs, a sub-sun, a lower sun pillar, an upper tangent arc, a supralateral arc, a Parry arc, a 46-degree halo, a circumzenithal arc, and a parhelic circle--all sculpted from sunlight by floating diamond dust.
www.spaceweather.com
Morris's quick iPhone photo captured a rare variety of forms: a 22-degree halo, sundogs, sub-sundogs, a sub-sun, a lower sun pillar, an upper tangent arc, a supralateral arc, a Parry arc, a 46-degree halo, a circumzenithal arc, and a parhelic circle--all sculpted from sunlight by floating diamond dust.
www.spaceweather.com
RSS Feed