A ring around the Moon was seen over British skies on Saturday evening (November 25) in several areas in the UK.
Clouds surround the Annular Solar Eclipse on October 14, 2023 in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. Starting at the Oregon coast and concluding on the east coast of South America an annular solar eclipse, where the moon is at its farthest from the Earth, will project a halo of sunlight around the moon's border.
Space.com described a halo as an optical illusion causing a large bright ring to surround the sun or the Moon. The phenomenon was the result of the refraction of moonlight from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere.
The suspended or falling flecks of ice meant that the atmosphere was transformed into a giant lens.
The Met Office said a halo could suggest rainfall might be approaching, especially in the summer months.
Read Also: NASA's James Webb Space Telescopes Provides View of Mysterious Star-Forming Heart of Milky Way
Look up - the moon has a halo right now 🌘 pic.twitter.com/cCKjDTuyT1
— Angie Burns (@angie_buk) November 25, 2023
Observing a Halo
Geographer Simon Collins told the BBC that he was "delighted" to catch a glimpse of the lunar halo as a weather observer and local weather station manager and shared the fascination of others who saw the phenomenon.
Some described witnessing the occurrence as "amazing," while others described it as "very weird" and "like a night time rainbow."
Several people also took photos of the Moon and its halo and uploaded and shared them to social media platforms such as X, formerly Twitter.
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