Woman takes ‘crazy’ photo of plane surrounded by rainbow in rare phenomenon known as 'pilot's glory'

A woman captured a rare and beautiful event from her flight.

The Reddit post, from u/anglovesart, was title: 'Crazy photo outside airplane today'.

'I took this first photo from the plane today, posted it to IG and a friend sent me a message that her boyfriend took the same exact photo today from a different flight. It is the shadow of the plane I was in surrounded by a prism, crazy!' she captioned. It shows a photo of a plane's shadow engulfed in a rainbow.

The photo reached over 1.6k upvotes, with users expressing their amazement.

Some intelligent users commented on what the event is called, with one replying: 'It's a glory. Something to do with high altitude and being backlit. Mountain peaks get them as well.'

u/anglovesart/Reddit

Later, the original poster commented an update on the post, writing: 'Update: I did a Google Lens search and found out the phenomenon is called Pilots Glory. Lots of other posts of similar photos.'

Other users claimed to say that the event is nothing new: 'I don't think I've ever been in a window seat without seeing one of these?'

A glory is an optical phenomenon that is 'most commonly observed while airborne, with the glory surrounding the airplane’s shadow on clouds,' according to Wikipedia.

This is why passengers on flights can sometimes see the "glory" or "halo" around the shadow of their plane when they look out the window.

HowStuffWorks explained: 'The phenomenon requires the viewer to be directly between the source of light and the water droplets, with the size and distribution of the droplets affecting the appearance of the glory.'

u/anglovesart/Reddit

This is why passengers on flights can sometimes see the 'glory' or 'halo' around the shadow of their plane when they look out the window.

Before aviation, the only way to see a glory was to hike to heights or be near a geyser or hot spring, according to NASA. Now, even astronauts reported seeing glories from their space shuttle flights.

Other lucky individuals have managed to capture the Pilot's Glory, or Pilot's Halo.

So much so that there's a whole host of websites dedicated to showcasing glory pictures.

For instance, PhilipLaven.com advises: 'When you travel by air, look out for the shadow of your aircraft on the clouds. If you are lucky, you will see a glory around the aircraft's shadow.'

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