Halo lunaire au-dessus d'un cercle de pierres
Image Credit & Copyright:
Alyn Wallace Photography
Have you ever seen a halo around the
Moon?
This fairly common sight occurs when
high thin clouds containing millions of tiny
ice crystals cover much of the sky.
Each ice crystal acts like a miniature lens.
Because
most
of the crystals have a similar
elongated hexagonal shape,
light entering one crystal face and exiting
through the opposing face refracts 22 degrees,
which corresponds to the radius of the Moon Halo.
A similar Sun Halo
may be visible during the day.
Exactly
how ice-crystals form
in clouds remains under investigation.
In the featured image, the ice
circle in the sky is mirrored by a stone circle on the ground.
Taken just over a month ago in
Pontypridd Common,
Wales,
UK, the central
Rocking Stone survives from the
last
ice age, while the surrounding stones in the circles were placed much more recently -- during the 1800s.