On Feb. 11th, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) lifted off from Cape Canaveral on a five-year mission to study the sun. Moments after launch, SDO's Atlas V rocket flew past a sundog hanging suspended in the blue Florida sky and, with a rippling flurry of shock waves, destroyed it. The video was recorded by 13-year-old Anna Herbst at NASA's Banana River viewing site.
A sundog (a.k.a. parhelion) is an atmospheric optical phenomenon caused by the refraction and reflection of sunlight within ice crystals in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. It is also known as "false Sun" or "mock Sun". I had always seen photos of parhelia in the internet and I find them not so exciting until I saw a sundog with my own eyes. Read more
Like glowing parentheses, two sun dogs gave cold-bitten Omaha, Nebraska, residents a reason to go outside Wednesday. Typically seen to the left and right of a low-lying sun, sun dogs, or parhelia, can take a number of forms - from slightly brighter segments of a solar halo (as shown) to rainbow-hued horizontal streaks to blinding spots nearly indistinguishable from the sun itself. Read more