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Where is it?Guadalupe Island , Pacific Ocean
What ’s in the photo?A rainbow ' resplendency ' alongside von Kármán whirl
What looks like a double rainbow but is actually a warped “glory” shines in the sky above Mexico’s Guadalupe Island in 2012 as rare Von Kármán vortices swirl away from the landmass.
Which satellite took the photo?NASA ’s Terra satellite
When was it taken?June 21 , 2012
This 2012 satellite photo shows a unique linear perspective of a rarified , rainbow - like phenomenon , known as a gloriole , that appeared next to a Mexican island just as the landmass spawned a separate series of equally rare swarm vortex .
Glories normally appear as concentric multicolor circles. This one was spotted from an airplane window.
halo are multicolor light shows similar to rainbows , with one key conflict : While rainbows grade via a combination of mirror image and refraction when sunlight bounces off falling rain droplet and split into unlike wavelengths , glories are make by backward diffraction — when light bounces straight off even small H2O droplet in cloud or mist , agree toNASA ’s Earth Observatory . Because of this , glories only seem precisely opposite the sunlight , known as the anti - solar point .
This aura appeared adjacent to Guadalupe Island in the Pacific Ocean , around 150 Admiralty mile ( 240 kilometer ) off the western coast of Mexico , and seemed to stretch for more than 300 geographical mile ( 480 kilometers ) . Although there come along to be two decided glories pass parallel to one another , it is a single entity .
In the image , a line of eerily complete cloud vortex , known as Von Kármán convolution , trail off the island ’s southernmost point . These swirling structures are formed when cloud get caught up in an airflow that has been disrupted by a tall landmass , most often above an ocean . In this case , the disruption is due to a volcanic mountain ridgepole in the magnetic north of Guadalupe Island , which uprise more than 4,200 feet ( 1,300 time ) above sea level .
While the glorification and vortices are both only seeable because of the thick stratocumulus clouds cover this part of the Pacific , their appearance are not connected to one another .
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Normally , glories seem as concentrical multicolor roofy when viewed from the dry land or in the air because the diffracted light radiates outward as it bounces back toward the observer . Even from space , the rainbow - like phenomenon often look circular , as was the case whenNASA ’s Columbia space shuttleviewed the first glory from scope in 2003 .
However , in this compositor’s case , the Terra satellite that captured the photograph " scan the Earth ’s Earth’s surface in swath vertical to the course follow by the satellite , " Earth Observatory representatives wrote . So in the image , the rainbow streaks are cross - section of the same circular glory that has been scanned double by the satellite .
— gravitational attraction waves trigger off dyad of utter swarm riffle above uninhabited islands
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— Mysterious , slow - spinning swarm ' cyclone ' hugs the Iberian sea-coast
As a result , the rainbow streaks hunt parallel on either side of the satellite ’s trajectory above our planet . The colouring material in each streak are utterly turn back compare to the other : From left to right , the rainbow on the left of the image runs from red to bluish and the rainbow on the right runs from blue to red .
Until recently , scientists had only ever seen glories on Earth or within the dense clouds of Venus . However , in April , astronomersdetected what they think to be the first extrasolar gloryon the distant " hell planet " WASP-76 b , around 637 light-headed - years from our planet , evoke they might be more common than we realized .
