Solar halo viewed in the sky over Kunming, pictures going viral

Citizens in Kunming, Yunnan Province have caught sight of a striking halo around the sun in the sky at noon on April 9, and following snapshots at various sites they posted many halo pictures on their WeChat moments. 

Pictures taken at the Chenggong campus of Yunnan University show the halo is coupled with the Huize building and the clock tower. “The halo decorated the buildings in our school,” said students in the university. “And the flowers look even more beautiful today.”

In the photos taken at downtown Kunming, the halo was snapshot in different angles and against varied foregrounds. All showcase the public’s zest in the natural phenomena that came to the spring city unexpected. 

Halo is the name for a family of optical phenomena produced by light interacting with ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. Halos can have many forms. Some are near the Sun or Moon, but others occur elsewhere in the sky. The ice crystals responsible for halos are typically suspended in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds high in the upper troposphere.

Reporting Guanxi Ruyi and Li Zhe; trans-editing by Wang Shixue