Different natural phenomenons happening in the skies of Josefina

1. Halo, Sundogs, Types of
Rainbows

2. Halo
It is a ring of light that forms around the sun or moon as the sun or
moon refracts off ice crystals present in a thin veil of cirrus clouds. Its
usually seen as a bright white ring.

4. Formation of Haloes
● It is as a result of sunlight traveling through ice crystals in cirrus clouds in
the atmosphere. Light is refracted and reflected by these ice crystals and
dispersed into different colors.
● The crystals act like mirrors and prisms, refracting and reflecting light
between their faces, sending rays of light in certain directions

6. Sundogs
● Sundogs are colored spots of light that develop due to the refraction of light
through ice crystals. They are located approximately 22 degrees either left, right,
or both, from the sun, depending on where the ice crystals are present.
● It is also known as parhelia, which means “with the sun”.
● Sundogs often form in pairs on either side of our daytime star when sunlight
refracts through icy clouds containing hexagonal platecrystals aligned with their
large, flat faces parallel to the ground.

8. Formation of Sundogs
● Sundogs are formed from hexagonal ice crystals in high and cold cirrus
clouds or, during very cold weather, by ice crystals drifting in the air at low levels.
These crystals act as prisms, bending the light rays passing through them.
● As the crystals sink through the air they become vertically aligned, refracting
the sunlight horizontally so that sundogs are observed.
● They also occur when ice crystals in the atmosphere are more common, but
can be seen whenever and wherever there are cirrus clouds.

10. Rainbow
● A rainbow is a multicolored arc made by light striking water droplets.
● It is also a light phenomenon formed from the combination of several light
properties like refraction, reflection, and dispersion. Rainbows are usually seen
after rainfall because they are formed when light strikes the scattered raindrops
in the atmosphere.

11. Formation of Rainbows
● Rainbows are formed when light from the sun is scattered by water droplets
(e.g. raindrops or fog) through a process called refraction.
● Refraction occurs when the light from the sun changes direction when
passing through a medium denser than air, such as a raindrop. Once the
refracted light enters the raindrop, it is reflected off the back and then refracted
again as it exits and travels to our eyes.

13. Types of Rainbows
● Primary Rainbow ● Secondary Rainbow ● Supernumerary Rainbow
Primary Rainbow
● It’s a rainbow that undergoes one internal reflection. It is brighter than
the secondary rainbow and the order of the color is maintained.
Secondary Rainbow
● A secondary rainbow appears if the sunlight is reflected twice inside the
water droplets. Secondary rainbows are fainter, and the order of the color is
reversed, with red on the bottom.

15. Supernumerary Rainbow
● Are rainbows bordered by narrow coloured bows (green, violet or orange)
due to interference of light waves. They occur inside the primary rainbow or on
rare occasions outside the secondary rainbow.
● When raindrops are large (greater than 1 mm in diameter), the diffraction
pattern may have up to five supernumerary bows, the first merged with the
primary bow, and all repeating the vivid colour pattern. With smaller drops, fewer
supernumerary bows form.

17. Why clouds are usually white and rain clouds are dark?
● Clouds usually appear white because the tiny water droplets inside them are
tightly packed, reflecting most of the sunlight that hits them. White is how our eyes
perceive all wavelengths of sunlight mixed together.
● When it’s about to rain, clouds darken because the water vapor is dumping
together into raindrops, leaving larger spaces between drops of water. Less light
is reflected. The rain cloud appears black or gray.

19. Why sky is blue and sunset is reddish?
● The sky is blue due to a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering. This
scattering refers to the scattering of electromagnetic radiation by particles of a
much smaller wavelength.
● Sunlight is scattered by the particles of the atmosphere, and what comes
through down to Earth is called diffuse sky radiation. The smallest wavelengths
correspond to blue hues, hence why when look at the sky, we see it as blue.
●Within the visible range of light, red light waves are scattered the least by
atmospheric gas molecules. So at sunrise and sunset, when the sunlight travels
a long path through the atmosphere to reach our eyes, the blue light has been
mostly removed, leaving mostly red and yellow light remaining. The result is that
the sunlight takes on an orange or red cast, which we can see reflected from
clouds or other objects as a colorful sunset (or sunrise).

20. ●The sky is red at sunset because red light waves are scattered the least by
atmospheric gas molecules. At sunset, light must travel farther through the
atmosphere before it gets to you, so more of it is reflected and scattered and
the sun appears dimmer. The color of the sun itself appears to change, first to
orange and then to red because even more of the short wavelength blues and
greens are now scattered and only the longer wavelengths(reds, oranges) are
left to be seen.