Don't panic ... ring around the sun was just a HALO

Guardian Photo by EDISON BOODOOSINGH

People in Trinidad & Tobago were in panic Saturday because of what they saw - a ring around the sun.

The Guardian newspaper investigated and discovered it was a halo, also known as a nimbus, icebow or gloriole.

Here's what the paper reported: "It is associated with clouds called cirrostratus which are composed of ice crystals and usually form at altitudes above 20,000 feet.

"Dr Shirin Haque, senior lecturer and astronomer in the Department of Physics at the University of the West Indies (UWI), said the halo around the sun is perfectly normal and is due to the ice crystals suspended in the clouds."

The paper quoted Dr Haque as saying, “The ice crystals act like tiny prisms, refracting the light from the sun and splitting it up into the rainbow colours due to dispersion.

"The conditions just happened to be right for there to be such a beautiful halo around the sun.

"Halos around the sun do not happen too often but certainly are not an uncommon phenomena at all."