Hello, in this post I would like to tell you about Sun Dogs. What is Sun Dogs? it's a natural phenomenon. Sun dogs (or sundogs) are an atmospheric phenomenon that consists of a pair of bright spots on either side on the Sun, often co-occurring with a luminous ring known as a 22° halo. Sun dogs are a member of a large family of halos, created by light interacting with ice crystals in the atmosphere. Sun dogs typically appear as two subtly colored patches of light to the left and right of the Sun, approximately 22° distant and at the same elevation above the horizon as the Sun. They can be seen anywhere in the world during any season, but they are not always obvious or bright. Sun dogs are best seen and are most conspicuous when the Sun is close to the horizon.
Sun dogs are commonly made by the refraction of light from plate-shaped hexagonal ice crystals either in high and cold cirrus clouds or, during very cold weather, drifting in the air at low levels, in which case they are called diamond dust. The crystals act as prisms, bending the light rays passing through them with a minimum deflection of 22°. If the crystals are randomly oriented, a complete ring around the Sun is seen — a halo.But often, as the crystals sink through the air, they become vertically aligned, so sunlight is refracted horizontally — in this case, sun dogs are seen.
As the Sun rises higher, the rays passing through the crystals are increasingly skewed from the horizontal plane. Their angle of deviation increases, and the sun dogs move farther from the sun. However, they always stay at the same elevation as the sun.
Sun dogs are red-colored at the side nearest the Sun. Farther out the colors grade through oranges to blue. However, the colors overlap considerably and so are muted, never pure or saturated. The colors of the sun dog finally merge into the white of the parhelic circle (if the latter is visible).
It is possible to predict the forms of sun dogs as would be seen on other planets and moons. Mars might have sun dogs formed by both water-ice and CO2-ice. On the giant gas planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — other crystals form the clouds of ammonia, methane, and other substances that can produce halos with four or more sun dogs.
Pictures of Sun Dogs
(Close-up of a sundog, with enhanced colors)
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dogs
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dogs
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