02/05/2026
Ever wonder what those orbs of light were beside the winter sun? They're pretty magical, but it turns out, they're actually a result of something very scientific!✨️
Simply put: a sun dog, or parhelion, is a bright patch of light—often rainbow-colored—that appears beside the Sun when sunlight refracts through ice crystals in high clouds.
Rainbows form when drops of rain act as prisms, breaking sunlight into a multitude of colors. Sun dogs appear when sunlight passes through a thin veil of ice crystal clouds (usually cirrus or cirrostratus), and the ice acts as a prism, refracting the light ✨️
A sun dog is seen about 22° to the left or right of the Sun. Sun dogs often form in pairs on either side of the Sun. Often, they appear white, but sometimes they are quite colorful, looking like patches of rainbow. The colors usually go from red on the side nearest to the Sun, shifting from orange to blue on the outside of the sun dog.
So why the name "sun dogs"? According to Greek mythology, Zeus walked his dogs across the sky, and those “false suns” in the sky on either side of the sun’s disk were his two dogs ✨️
Learn more! Almanac.com/what-are-sundogs-rainbows-beside-sun
