What are sun pillars and lightweight pillars?
Solar pillars and lightweight pillars are beams of sunshine that stretch vertically upward (or downward) from a shiny gentle supply, such because the sun or one other shiny gentle low on the horizon. They are often 5 to 10 degrees excessive and generally even increased. In truth, they may lengthen or brighten as you stare upon them.
They’re stunning and wondrous. They usually’re additionally the supply of some UFO experiences!
Solar pillars or gentle pillars type when daylight (or one other shiny gentle supply) displays off the surfaces of hundreds of thousands of falling ice crystals related to skinny, high-level clouds – for instance, cirrostratus clouds. The ice crystals have roughly horizontal faces. They’re falling by Earth’s environment, rocking barely backward and forward.
When is the most effective time to see a sun pillar or gentle pillar?
You’ll most frequently see sun pillars when the sun is low within the western sky earlier than sundown, or low within the east simply after the breaking of daybreak. Nonetheless, you may even see a sun pillar when the sun is beneath the horizon. Alternatively, you possibly can see gentle pillars at any time of evening.
They’re known as sun pillars when the sun helps make them. However the moon and even streetlights can create this gentle phenomenon, too, during which case the identify gentle pillar is extra applicable.
These pillars of sunshine usually immediate individuals to report sightings of UFOs. They will generally look unusual! In truth, gentle pillars set off a variety of UFO experiences over Niagara Falls, the place the mist from the push of descending water interacts with town’s many upward dealing with spotlights. Gentle pillars do seem steadily over Niagara Falls, particularly through the winter.
By the way in which, Les Cowley’s nice web site Atmospheric Optics is a superb place to go and be taught extra about sun pillars.
Try these photographs of some gentle pillars simply earlier than dawn this morning in Fraser, despatched to us from Johnny Rudell! Pillars type as slowly falling ice crystals mirror gentle. #COwx pic.twitter.com/oGOU4NRztZ
— NWS Boulder (@NWSBoulder) December 7, 2022
Backside line: In the suitable circumstances, you possibly can see vertical shafts of sunshine extending upward or downward from the sun or different shiny gentle sources. These are known as sun pillars or gentle pillars, and are brought on by gentle reflecting from hexagonal ice crystals drifting in Earth’s environment.
