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APOD

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

A Fire Rainbow over West Virginia

Explanation: What's happening to this cloud? Ice crystals in a distant cirrus cloud are acting like little floating prisms. Known informally as a fire rainbow for its flame-like appearance, a circumhorizon arc appears parallel to the horizon. For a circumhorizontal arc to be visible, the Sun must be at least 58 degrees high in a sky where cirrus clouds present below -- in this case cirrus fibratus. The numerous, flat, hexagonal ice-crystals that compose the cirrus cloud must be aligned horizontally to properly refract sunlight in a collectively similar manner. Therefore, circumhorizontal arcs are somewhat unusual to see. The featured fire rainbow was photographed in 2021 near North Fork Mountain in West Virginia, USA.

Tomorrow's picture: meteoric photobomb

Date:

August 2, 2026

Credit & Copyright:

Christa Harbig

Authors & editors:

Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe

A service of:

ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

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