Rare 22 Degree Sun Halo Stunned Hyderabadis

A rare celestial sight took the Hyderabadis by surprise this morning. The sun was encircled in a rainbow-coloured halo for more than an hour and many tried to capture it on their mobile phones. In fact, the display pictures (on WhatsApp) of many Hyderabadis were changed to the halo-encircled sun within a matter of a few mintues of the pleasant surprise.

This phenomenon, popularly called as the 22-degree circular halo, which can occur either to the sun or the moon, occurs when their rays get refracted through the hexagonal ice crystals existing in the cirrus clouds. This is also known as the Kaleidoscopic Effect. When the halo occurs around the moon, it is called moon ring or winter ring.

Generally, the cirrus clouds are formed when the water vapour freezes into ice crystals 5-10 km above the earth’s surface.

This phenomenon is very common in cold countries and in tropical countries, it is very rare. The red and blue ring around the sun persisted for more than 30 minutes.

UK-based Atmospheric Optics, a knowledge-sharing website, states that the halo phenomena happens when the light is reflected and refracted by ice crystals and may split into colours because of dispersion of light.

The website also said that atmospheric optical phenomena like halos were used to forecast weather conditions, before the branch of meteorology was developed. Halos often indicate that rain will fall within the next 24 hours.

It also said that Halos are the collective glints of millions of crystals that happen to have the right orientation and angular position to direct their refracted light into the viewer’s eye. Let us have a look at some of the pictures captured on phones and posted on social media.