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A sun pillar, or light pillar, is a shaft of light from the sun or other bright light source, caused by ice crystals under the right atmospheric conditions.
Charlie Winstead in southwest Indiana said, "Looked like there would be an interesting sky at sunrise, so headed out to shoot ... While en route, I noticed the sun pillar."
Sun pillars happen when sunlight reflects from plate-like ice crystals, drifting through Earth's atmosphere with a horizontal orientation, gently rocking from side to side as they fall.
Nature photographer Jörgen Andersson posted this photo to EarthSky Facebook on January 22, 2018.
You might see a sun pillar - or light pillar - extending upward (or downward) from a bright light source. They're caused by ice crystals drifting in Earth's air.
A sun pillar, visible earlier this month before and up until dawn, from the Northumberland coast in northeast England.
Photographer Josh Blash caught this sun pillar last night in Hampton, New Hampshire. It's caused by ice crystals drifting in the air.
Jesse Jackson saw this sun pillar near Tucson, Arizona. "Talk about a ray of sunshine," he said.
Ice crystals in the air create these beautiful, upward shafts of light.
NASA has released a new 3D visualization of the Pillars of Creation using data from NASA's Hubble and James Webb space telescopes.
If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, your earliest sunrises of the year are happening around now. Southern Hemisphere? Your earliest sunsets are around now.
For the northern half of Earth, the return of the light after the solstice. The latest sunrises of the year come in late December and early January.
NEOMIR - an early asteroid warning system - will target asteroids near the sun. It will look for and monitor asteroids 65 feet (20 m) and larger.
ESA's Solar Orbiter reached perihelion, its closest point to the sun, in March. Here are stunning closeup images as never seen before.
For many of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it's cold! Here's a predawn sky - from Alberta, Canada, earlier this week - at least partly created by cold.
We see a fair number of photos of light pillars - shafts of light extending from the sun or other bright light source - taken from northerly latitudes. This one is caused by the moon, and it's over Earth's South Pole.
When there are ice crystals in the air around you, you might see light pillars. They're the result of light reflecting from the crystals suspended in the air or clouds.
The ecliptic is an imaginary line that marks the path of the sun. You can also find the planets and moon near this line, tracing the plane of our solar system.
Light pillar extending up from a lighted tourist attraction, hidden behind a ridge.
In one night, nature photographer John Ashley caught contrasting images of two very different light displays in the sky.