the.com/sundog
a ghost sun haunting the sky, conjured by ice crystals playing with light.
means A bright spot or patch of light that appears beside the sun, caused by sunlight refracting through ice crystals in the atmosphere.
from English, and a bit of a puzzle. The 'sun' part is plain enough; the 'dog' part is the mystery. The popular idea is that these spots 'follow' the sun like a loyal dog trotting at its heels, but no one is certain that's the true root. The word is old in English (the related 'water-dog' once named a small cloud thought to herald rain), and some have linked 'dog' here to obscure Norse or dialect terms — though such connections remain unproven. The honest answer: the canine in this celestial creature is of uncertain pedigree.
- true name
- scientists call them parhelia, meaning beside the sun
- exact spot
- always 22 degrees from the sun, never closer
- ice recipe
- flat hexagonal crystals drifting like tiny prisms
- color order
- red toward the sun, blue away from it
- ancient omen
- once read as warnings of coming storms
moilanen arc — rare halo phenomenon observed in finnish lapland and polar regions, forms a distinctive curved arc above sundogs