Ring Around the Sun

From New Zealand’s Aoraki Mt. Cook National Park a glorious halo circled the sun over the snowcapped and cloud-shrouded mountains of the rugged Southern Alps. Such beautiful celestial displays occur when tiny ice crystals form in the Earth’s upper atmosphere and refract and reflect sunlight in a ring 44 degrees across. Although this remarkable day-time image do not represent the world at night it appears on TWAN in the context of Atmospheric Optics and Phenomena Gallery.