Ring Around The Moon


Photo: brian s huff [Flickr]

Did you see the ring around the moon last night? If you did and wondered what caused it, Yahoo! Buzz Log has the answer:

Though it looked ominous, the shiny ring around the moon last night was actually a rather common weather phenomenon. According to various weather-related blogs across the Buzz, this ring around the moon occurs when thin cirrus clouds, which contain ice crystals, refract the moonlight. A blog from the Goddard Space Flight Center explains that "the shape of the ice crystals results in a focusing of the light into a ring. Since the ice crystals typically have the same shape, namely a hexagonal shape, the Moon ring is always the same size."

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Comments (20)

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Newest 5 Comments

Yup, a moon dog. We had once a while back here in western SD. It means change in weather around here. Sun dogs in the winter predict colder weather. When there are two, watch out!

Love this blog, by the way!
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I do understand some science and I've study astronomy.

The Hadron will not make black holes large enough for the earth's end. But I do believe that it will over time, around 50 destroy our little blue planet. Messing with the magnetic field for one and have we not got enough background radiation without that Japanese machine.
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I'd heard that it wasn't the threat of black holes, but some strange and theoretical result of creating strange quarks, which supposedly will tear the very molecules of the world apart.

Just what I'd heard.
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They're building the huge ITER 500 MW tokamak project one hour drive from my home.
I'll try to post something if I see a big bright mushroom the day they switch it on. In 2018.
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Come Wednesday we will either be one step closer to understanding the origins of our planet or one step closer to destroying the planet once and for all. Which will it be? Well, we will all just have to wait and see.

www.thebugz.com
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oh, you silly, silly kids, those are not such things out of a sci-fi movie, they are just harmless expensive research equipment, all they really do is a try to the discovery of information on the mechanics of physics, no big production of anything substancial (like a nuclear reactor).
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let's all kill ourselves now so that the evil scientists can't kill us with their black holes and magnetic disturbances.

as a physics student I'm apalled at how dumb people are. anything to justify slashing the science budget, right? it's all a witch hunt.

now, if a Magnetar blows up anywhere nearby, the atmosphere would boil away and we would be instantly killed by gamma radiation. but scientists aren't in the business of fabricating death stars. if you want to fear something, fear the infinite void above us.
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