A Pileus Iridescent Cloud Over Ethiopia

The above image was taken just after the picturesque sight was noticed by chance by humanitarian photographer, Esther Havens in Ethiopia.

Usually, the effect is outshone by the brightness of the sun, but in this photo taken in Ethiopia, the darker cloud is helpfully blocking the glare to reveal the spectrum of light behind. Here’s a bonafide scientist from NASA to explain the rest:

“How many dark clouds have a multicolored lining? Pictured, behind this darker cloud, is a pileus iridescent cloud, a group of water droplets that have a uniformly similar size, together diffract different colors of sunlight by different amounts.

A more detailed picture of the same cloud shows not only many colors, but unusual dark and wavy bands whose origins are thought related to wave disturbances in the cloud.” – sciency guy