IRIDESCENT RAINBOW CLOUD

 

Photograph by ESTHER HAVENS

 

Description by NASA: Pictured behind this darker cloud, is a pileus iridescent cloud, a group of water droplets that have a uniformly similar size and so together diffract different colors of sunlight by different amounts. The above image was taken just after the picturesque sight was noticed by chance by a photographer in Ethiopia. A more detailed picture of the same cloud shows not only many colors, but unusual dark and wavy bands whose origins are thought related to wave disturbances in the cloud. [Source: NASA APOD]
 

Esther Havens for Light the World via NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day