A lunar halo surprised many French people on the evening of Sunday November 26, 2023. This optical phenomenon, linked to the presence of ice crystals, was photographed.
It was neither a dream nor a smudge on the camera lenses that captured the phenomenon. A lunar halo was well observed in France on the evening of Sunday November 26, 2023. Under certain very specific conditions, halos can form around the Moon or the Sun. These are photometeors, optical phenomena in the Earth’s atmosphere, one of the best known of which is the rainbow.
The phenomenon has been observed from several places in France, such as Seine-Maritime, the Loire Valley and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The most attentive observers will even have spotted a detail adding even more poetry to the scene: the presence of Jupiter, a planet visible to the naked eye and then in conjunction with the Moon (on its right).
The lunar halo had even already been observed on the evening of Saturday November 25, as here in the Normandy sky.
Ice crystals bending light
Being lucky enough to see such halos surrounding the Moon or Sun is not that common. Many people discovering the phenomenon therefore legitimately wondered what the explanation was. It was quickly contributed by Internet users, such as the doctor in agroclimatology Serge Zaka, who replied on decomposition of light by ice crystals “. These crystals deflect light rays, creating a unique halo for each observer of the phenomenon.
This optical phenomenon was not only admired in France. Also in the United Kingdom, a magnificent lunar halo was immortalized above the Stonehenge monument. The halo has even been seen beyond Europe, as far as the west coast of the United States, in California.
Like rainbows, lunar or solar halos are not real images, but virtual images. Each person observing a halo sees a unique phenomenon, different from that which their neighbor will perceive.
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