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Credit & Copyright: Brent Mckean
Explanation:
Yes, but could you get to work on time if the Moon looked like this?
As the photographer was preparing to drive to work,
refraction,
reflection, and even
diffraction of moonlight
from millions of falling ice crystals turned the
familiar icon of our Moon into a
menagerie of other-worldly halos and arcs.
The featured scene was captured with
three combined exposures two weeks ago on a cold winter morning in
Manitoba,
Canada.
The colorful rings
are a corona caused by
quantum diffraction
by small drops of water or ice near the direction of the
Moon.
Outside of that, a
22-degree halo
was created by moonlight refracting through six-sided cylindrical
ice crystals.
To the sides are
moon dogs, caused by light refracting
through thin, flat,
six-sided ice platelets
as they flittered toward the ground.
Visible at the top and bottom of the
22-degree halo are upper and lower
tangent arcs,
created by moonlight refracting through nearly horizontal
hexagonal ice cylinders.
A few minutes later, from a field just off the road to work,
the halo and arcs had disappeared, the sky had returned to normal --
with the exception of a
single faint moon dog.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Moon
Publications with words: Moon
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