Why is there a ring around the moon?

A GLISTENING phenomena seen from Earth gives the appearance of a ring around the moon.

But what causes it to appear, and what does it mean?

1

Why is there a ring around the moon?

The ring around the moon is caused by light refracting through hexagonal ice crystals.

The 22 degree ring around the moon is visible on as many as 100 days per year.

The sky is darker inside the halo, as no light is refracted at angles smaller than 22 degrees,

The bright spots that can sometimes be seen on either north-south or east-west are known as Moon Dogs.

A circle can also be formed around the sun, but when it forms around the moon it is known as a Moon Ring or Winter Halo.

The ring, or halo effect, is caused by the refraction of sunlight through ice crystals in the upper atmosphere, around three to six miles above the Earth.

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Usually the ring is seen along with cirrus clouds - the thin, wispy clouds seen at high altitude.

The ice crystals always have a hexagonal shape meaning that any light which passes through them will always refract at the same angle – 22 degrees.

As different colors are refracted at slightly different angles, it causes a rainbow to form.

The light is broken up into its separate colors because the huge number of crystals all refract at the varying positions due to where they sit in the sky, and so you see the colors split up like a rainbow.

What does the ring around the moon symbolise?

A ring around the moon means that a storm or some kind of bad weather is coming soon, according to folklore.

While this may be the case some of the time, in reality, there's often other explanations.

The ring appears when the sky is covered with cirrus or cirrostratus clouds that often appear a few days before a storm, but those clouds can also occur without any associated weather change.

Spiritually, some people believe the halo signifies innocence, holiness or power.

How does the moon shine?

While it may look like it's glowing, the moon doesn't actually produce its own light.

The brightness you see is actually sunlight shining on to the moon and bouncing off.

Remarkably, the moon only reflects between three and 12 per cent of the sunlight that hits it.