3rd December 2009 Sky Watch

On the night of 3rd December 2009 a quite known phenomena was observed in the night sky revealing a breath taking view of the moon along with a dense cloud around the moon like a ring in the city of Islamabad and Rawalpindi and also across many cities of Pakistan. Some of the observers found it quite strange and were unable to understand the phenomenon so I’ll briefly explain why there was a huge ring around the moon.

The moon can produce interesting optical effects when conditions are right. The most common of which are moon rings, moon bows, which are similar to rainbows, moon dogs and moon pillars. This ring formation is almost like the formation of a rainbow. In rainbow the sunlight is refracted through the droplets in the atmosphere revealing the seven colors. A similar effect is produced when moon light refracts through ice crystals.

Moon Ring Observed on 3rd December 2009 night

The ring around the Moon is caused by the refraction of Moonlight (which of course is reflected sunlight) from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. The shape of the ice crystals results in focusing light into a ring. Since the ice crystals typically have the same shape i.e hexagonal shape, the Moon ring is almost always the same size. The ring that appears around the moon arises from light passing through six-sided ice crystals high in the atmosphere. These ice crystals refract, or bend light like a camera lens. Thin high cirrus clouds lofting at 20,000 feet or more contain tiny ice crystals that originate from the freezing of super cooled water droplets.

Moon Ring Formation Credited: hiwaay.net

This is not all, the moon ring also predicts weather that may be approaching. The ice crystals that cover the halo signify high altitude, thin cirrus clouds that normally precede a warm front by one or two days. Typically, a warm front will be associated with a low pressure system which is commonly referred to as a storm. According to some observers the the ring also gives some chilling news i.e the number of stars within a moon halo indicate the number days before bad weather will arrive.

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