Upside Down Rainbow Seen Over England
Upside down rainbow.
Apparently an upside down rainbow was spotted over the UK and astronomer Dr Jacqueline Mitton, 60, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
She captured the image near her home in Cambridge, England.
Upside down rainbows are rare, they are caused by freak atmospheric conditions, they are rarely seen outside polar regions.
As you know regular rainbows are the result of sunshine penetrating raindrops and emerging on the other side forming an arc that points towards the Earth, but the inverted or upside down rainbow, which is called a circumzenithal arc, occurs when sunlight bounces off ice crystals high in the atmosphere sending the rays back up.
Speaking about seeing the upside down rainbow, Dr Jacqueline Mitton said, “It was amazing.” She also said the colours of the inverted rainbow were more intense than a regular rainbow because it occurred at the perfect position, 20 degrees above the horizon.
Dr Mitton continued, “I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I’m 60.
“The conditions have to be just right: you need the right sort of ice crystals and the sky has to be clear.
“It’s quite surprising for this to occur somewhere like Cambridge, usually it is in places that are colder.
“We’re not sure how big an area it was visible over, but it was certainly very impressive.
“It was just an amazing combination of factors that happened at the right time.”
The inverted rainbow which appeared in the skie over Cambridge at 4.45pm on Sunday 14 September 2008.
Where would the pot of gold be in this scenario?
