March 4, 2024
You were born into motion: oceans turning, continents drifting, clouds forming, planets circling, galaxies wheeling through the dark.
Light Pillars Over Inner Mongolia
Birthday · March 4, 2024
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APOD published March 4, 2024. Credit: N. D. Liao. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What's happening across that field? Pictured here are not auroras but nearby light pillars, a phenomenon typically much closer. In most places on Earth, a lucky viewer can see a Sun pillar, a column of light appearing to extend up from the Sun caused by flat fluttering ice-crystals reflecting sunlight from the upper atmosphere. Usually, these ice crystals evaporate before reaching the ground. During freezing temperatures, however, flat fluttering ice crystals may form near the ground in a form of light snow sometimes known as a crystal fog. These ice crystals may then reflect ground lights in columns not unlike a Sun pillar. The featured image was taken last month across the Wulan Butong Grasslands in Inner Mongolia, China.
Image credit: N. D. Liao