Stunning footage has emerged of a symmetrical pattern around the sun that was taken at a ski resort in Sweden earlier this month.
There are two concentric circles around the sun and several spots or “smudges” that look like little miniature diamond-shaped suns on the top and the sides of the sun.
The footage, captured Dec. 1 at a ski resort in Vemdalen, Sweden, shows several phenomena happening at once.
The brightest and most inner circle around the sun appears to be a 22-degree halo, that occurs when light is refracted from ice crystals in the air.
The phenomena usually occur when cirrus clouds are present, often at high altitudes, and depend on the viewer’s angle.
The bright spots or smudges that appear on the sides and top of the sun are called parhelia and make a cross-like pattern with the sun at the center.
The outer circle appears to be a 46-degree halo, so named because of the degree at which the light is bent through the ice crystals. Just inside the 46-degree halo appear to be 44-degree parhelia, or “sun dogs of sun dogs,” according to Atmospheric Optics, “formed by rays that have already passed through a plate crystal—and would otherwise have formed a sundog—intercepting a second plate crystal and being further deflected.”
Passing through the sun and the parhelia is what appears to be another circle called a parhelic circle, and above the sun, an upside-down pyramid-like cone of light that appears to be a tangent arc.
Extreme Weather Europe posted the video, crediting Ludvig Lundin, on Twitter and Facebook, where it got over 8 million views and 313, 000 shares.
Commenting on the video, people posted photos they had taken of similar phenomena they had seen all over the world.
“How could anyone ever believe that we don’t have an amazingly wonderful God who loves us. Who else could do something so spectacular as this. What a privilege to be there and witness such beauty right before your own events,” posted a Facebook user pin the video.
