In a life full of emails, it's easy to forget that sometimes there are literally rainbows shining in the clouds.
This exists. Nature is crazy. Science is crazy. See if you can take a moment to embrace this and have a zen moment with it.
Gaze upon the majesty. It's a cloud rainbow shining over Mount Everest of all places. Goodness.
Sooooo ... why does nature turn Mount Everest into a rainbow marshmallow dreamland from time to time?
How does nature create this rainbow magic?
My favorite four-sentence explanation for why this rainbow cloud happens comes straight from Reddit user Sierraboi. It's pretty poetic!
1.
These rainbow clouds aren't unique to Mount Everest either, though of course they look extra gorgeous surrounded by all that Everesty goodness. Rainbow clouds are more particular to clouds where the ice crystals or droplets are about the same size.
2.
Because Mount Everest is so tall, clouds can get low. This means the clouds are close to the cold air and more moisture, which results in crystals forming. The moisture in the clouds turns to crystals that float on the edges of the clouds. The position of the sun and the hexagonal shape and angle of the tiny ice crystals in the clouds makes the rainbows!
3.
Normally clouds don't have the right conditions to refract light (which is why you don't see rainbow clouds everywhere ... bummer). But, for example, when there's a rainstorm, there's enough moisture in the air to refract light.
4.
There's enough condensed moisture (in the form of crystals) in the air to make rainbow clouds! So that's whatcha get.
Gorgeous rainbow crystals just floating about in the beautiful Mount Everest sky.
BOOM!
"Cold air aloft; resulting in ice crystals forming. Thus, light refracts off the crystals, giving the rainbow color."
I love investigating natural phenomenons only to realize that it's just nature doing the nature science-art that it does everywhere — in this case, rainbow-making — only on a slightly different canvas.