Rainbow Ring around the Sun

Rainbow Ring around the Sun, noon 15 November 2010

Click on the images to see detailed pictures

In Dar es Salaam, around noon on 15th November, at about 12:30 pm, for a couple of hours a unique event was experienced. People witnessed an amazing sight that is not common in our part of the world - a rainbow ring around the overhead sun.

We are used to a raninbow as a colourful arc over the horizon, but this was entirely different. The area inside the circle was distincly darker in comparison to the brightness of the couloured ring and the sky outside it.

See the attached pictures that show various parts of the ring and its colours. It was not possible to take a picture of the whole ring using the iphone camera that I had since the sun's intensity blocked out the ring when the camera was pointed directly upwards.

Anyway you can see distinct colours of the rinbow and the size of the circle is also apparent.

This phenomenon would occur when there is a lot of moisture in the upper atmosphere forming very high and very thin uniform layer of clouds, whose droplets refract the light of the sun when at 22 degree angle, which allows the white sunlight to be split into its specturm of colours.

As time passed, the western part of the ring became slightly wider, while the eastern part faded gradually, until the whole ring was gone by around 2:30 pm.

The wonders of Science help us to understand and enjoy nature.