This phenomenon is called a sun dog. Ice crystals in the atmosphere reflect the sun’s light, making it look like multiple suns in the sky. It would be awesome to experience it sometime:
Long ago, an event like this would be explained through superstition and sky gods. But now we explain it with science.
Okay, who am I kidding. I bet people think the end of the world is upon them when they see this happening for the first time.
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23 Comments
Phenomena like this will continue to amaze people as they spend more time inside playing video games than they do outside observing the natural world. Look at the number of people who don’t realize that the moon may be out in the daytime.
Very cool footage! Thanks, Daniel!
That’s just too awesome! I’d love to see that phenomena!
That was great! Thank you for posting that.
I have to use other words now, since “awesome” is overused by everyone. And “miracle” is sickeningly overused by Christians, television reporters, people seeing sky phenomena, and anyone gushing about someone squeezing out yet another baby. (At 6.9 billion, they can’t be much of a miracle.)
But I digress. (It was fun.)
Best sky phenomena (that’s plural for the singular word “phenomenon”, Dan Gilbert, in case you weren’t paying attention in school) were in Alaska.
Nothing like that though!
They’re pretty common here in the Canadian Arctic. And yes, they are very cool, both literally and figuratively.
People still watching/talking about American Idol is the only sign I need for the impending apocalypse.
repent! repent! the reckoning is upon us! oh we were fools to ignore god! now we will suffer an eternity of pain for our misdeeds.
oh wait. you said those were caused by ice crystals. well, nevermind about the repenting. sin at will.
“oh wait. you said those were caused by ice crystals. well, nevermind about the repenting. sin at will.”
You’ve fallen victim to the scientific communities conspiracy to promote the naturalistic worldview.
That’s a somewhat unusual sun dog – because there are several of them, lying in one plane. In general, sun dogs will appear to the right or left of the sun, and usually there is just one.
Thank you for posting this Daniel, this is very cool. Mark
Wow, thanks, that’s a great one. And now I don’t have to explain my handle!
That’s truly impressive. I usually see sun dogs every year, usually in January when it’s -20 degrees, but never this impressive. Although last year it was -30 degrees and when I was driving to work I thought it was the sun directly in front of me until all the obstacles were out of the way revealing the real sun. It looked like we had two suns that morning, it was almost like a Luke Skywalker moment.
I’ve seen rings around the sun before – but never the mutiple “suns”. Isn’t nature wonderful? And isn’t it more wonderful that you can look and say, “oh, ice crystals reflecting suns rays;” instead of some outlandish story that some halfwit made up to try and scare you? Thanks Daniel – I love your posts!
The video is awesome, but mostly because it is my goal never to live someplace where it is cold enough to see one of these things.
-20? Yikes.
I started to see these all the time when I was living in North Carolina, at least, as more subtle version. I still see them in Pennsylvania. They are most apparent just before sunset when the sun is very low and there are light wispy clouds. The dogs show up as short sections of rainbow, one on each side of the sun at the location of the clouds. I am surprised this seem so uncommon to so many people. Maybe I look up a lot.
Well, without further information this could of course be -20 degrees Celsius. For scientifically illiterate Americans, that would be a balmy -4 Fahrenheit.
Leela: Fry, night lasts two weeks on the moon.
Moon Farmer: Yep, drops down to minus-173.
Fry: Celsius or Fahrenheit?
Moon Farmer: First one, then the other.
That is incredible. No wonder people would attribute supernatural causes to this. I had no idea that could happen; if I walked outside and saw it I would think that it was a comet, the world was going to end or aliens are invading.
Ah, science. Helps with everything.
Now there’s somethin’ you don’t see ever’ day.
It does seem that the Bible beat science to the chase on telling people not to be afraid of this kind of stuff though, Jeremiah 10:2 “Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.”
When I was in High School the Foursquare Church was really out in force in our town and they were preaching about the end of the world which no one can pinpoint, especially (as far as I’m concerned) not Christians.
One day there was a ring around the sun, an atmospheric event that means there’s going to be a change in the weather. Well, to the Foursquare Christians on campus, it was suddenly a sign that the world was going to end.
Ignorance is not always bliss.
It is interesting that after I explained this to one of the Foursquare guys, they all immediately dropped their “The World is going to end” speeches. It’s good to be informed is it not!
Mike vftw
I usually don
lol, that’s probably why I would be the one running around dismayed going ‘aliens are coming!’.