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."
Comments (20)
Why is there a ring around the moon before bad weather? And what causes it?
Cross
Love this blog, by the way!
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.
Just what I'd heard.
I'll try to post something if I see a big bright mushroom the day they switch it on. In 2018.
www.thebugz.com
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.