December 18, 2012
You are a way for the cosmos to know itself, Carl Sagan once said. On your birthday, the cosmos got to know itself a little better.
A Sun Pillar Over Sweden
Birthday · December 18, 2012
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APOD published December 18, 2012. Credit: G�ran Strand. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Have you ever seen a sun pillar? When the air is cold and the Sun is rising or setting, falling ice crystals can reflect sunlight and create an unusual column of light. Ice sometimes forms flat, six-sided shaped crystals as it falls from high-level clouds. Air resistance causes these crystals to lie nearly flat much of the time as they flutter to the ground. Sunlight reflects off crystals that are properly aligned, creating the sun-pillar effect. In the above picture taken last week, a sun-pillar reflects light from a Sun setting over �stersund, Sweden.
Image credit: G�ran Strand