A rare event was captured over South Florida and shown by ‘Our Amazing Planet’.
So-called “fire rainbows” are neither on fire nor are they rainbows, but they sure are stunning.
They are technically known as iridescent clouds, a relatively rare phenomenon caused by clouds of water droplets of nearly uniform size, according to a release by NASA. These clouds diffract, or bend, light in a similar manner, which separates out light into different wavelengths, or colors.
That makes them similar to rainbow-colored glories, which are also formed by diffraction, and also produce an oscillating pattern of colors ranging from blue to green to red to purple and back to blue again.
As with other iridescent objects, like peacock feathers, the color changes depending upon one’s position relative to the sun and the object.
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