7 Amazing Photos of Fire Rainbows

(Photo: Phillip Clapper)

It's a rainbow-colored cloud! Or perhaps a fire rainbow. Or to put it more scientifically, it's a circumhorizontal arc. Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell of NASA describe the unusual conditions that are necessary for one of these natural wonders to appear in the sky:

For a circumhorizontal arc to be visible, the Sun must be at least 58 degrees high in a sky where cirrus clouds are present. Furthermore, the numerous, flat, hexagonal ice-crystals that compose the cirrus cloud must be aligned horizontally to properly refract sunlight in a collectively similar manner. Therefore, circumhorizontal arcs are quite unusual to see.

Continue reading to view more photos of fire rainbows.

(Photo: Atilla Magyar)

(Photo: Jeff Kubina)

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(Photo: Baccara)

(Photo: ProfessorX)

-via Kuriositas