APOD: 2026 August 2 – A Fire Rainbow over West Virginia

On Sunday, NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day featured a striking optical phenomenon: a fire rainbow. Rather than being caused by rain, this effect happens when ice crystals in high-altitude cirrus clouds refract sunlight like tiny prisms, creating flames of color across the sky. Known formally as a circumhorizontal arc, fire rainbows are relatively rare. They require the sun to be at least fifty-eight degrees high in the sky and the cloud's flat hexagonal ice crystals to be aligned horizontally — a combination that doesn't happen often. The featured fire rainbow was photographed near North Fork Mountain in West Virginia, showcasing one of nature's most striking optical displays.

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