RING OF LIGHT OVER A QUIET SEA

 RING OF LIGHT OVER A QUIET SEA

A soft rainbow circle, pinned to the sky you can’t unsee.

What you’re looking at is a solar halo—most often the 22° halo. It forms when sunlight passes through tiny hexagonal ice crystals floating in high, thin clouds (cirrostratus). Each crystal bends the light like a miniature prism, and because billions of them are oriented randomly, the bending adds up into a perfect circle around the sun. The subtle color order is classic: red on the inside, bluish tones toward the outside.

That textured “mackerel sky” cloud pattern behind it (altocumulus/altostratus vibes) makes the halo look even more amazing

A little extra magic: halos are often a heads-up that moisture is arriving high in the atmosphere, which can happen ahead of a weather change (not always rain, but it’s a common setup).

Where you can see that:
Look up when the sky has thin, milky high clouds and the sun still shines through. You’ll catch halos most often in coastal horizons, wide-open plains, deserts, mountain overlooks, or frozen-lake country—anywhere with big sky and clean visibility.