Green ray over Mauna Kea

In rare cases, photographing a sunset over an open area, you can witness an unusual phenomenon — a green ray that appears in the sky for just a few seconds. On April 7, astronomy professor Jimmy Westlake photographed a green ray while standing on top of the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii. According to him, several students also witnessed the appearance of an emerald imprint on the sky.

Explanations

The green ray is a rare optical phenomenon that can be observed for only a few seconds with a clear sky and a transparent atmosphere at the moment of the disappearance of the solar disk beyond the horizon, or when it appears above it. This is due to the decomposition of white sunlight into a spectrum when it passes through the atmospheric layer.

When the sun's rays are refracted in the atmosphere, their decomposition into a spectrum occurs, the refractive power depends on the wavelength of the beam. The decomposition into the spectrum is most pronounced at the moment of sunset — when only the upper part of it can be seen above the horizon, which, among other things, due to the overlapping of color rays becomes blue-green (the lower one is orange-red).

The last ray of the sun decomposes into a spectrum and forms several rays — although we should see violet with the last ray, due to the fact that it is a short-wave ray (like blue and blue), it is scattered in the atmosphere, so we see emerald last. For its observation, an open horizon is desirable (in the mountains, steppe or at sea), the absence of clouds during sunset and clean air.

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About author:

Serg Toporkov Ufologist, Ph.D., blogger, I go on my own expeditions for UFOs. I use scientific methods to investigate the UAP phenomenon. Write to me

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Mauna Kea  USA  UFO  green ray  explanation  analysis