Are there really rings around the sun like the planet Saturn? When a person stares at the sky, sometimes they see a ring around the sun. But most people haven’t seen those rings before. The rings that encircle the sun make people curious of what causes it to appear and disappear all of a sudden. Why is it not constantly there? What are those rings made up of and what is its significance?

The sun does not have any rings. If one looks through a telescope and observes it, there are no such rings like those found in other planets. The rings around the sun that some have observed are called halos. What causes those halos? A cloud called cirrostratus is made up of ice crystals. These ice crystals that are suspended on the cirrostratus clouds are hexagonal in shape. Of course its shape can only be seen using a microscope. The sun’s light passes through these crystals and it will disperse the light and act like a prism.

The halos have different sizes. The most commonly seen is the 22-degrees radius. There are instances though that a ring as big as 46-degrees radius sometimes appear. It also has different colours. The white one is most observed but there are also red, blue and rainbow colour. It is believed that the colour radiating from the halos depends on how it is deflected by the crystals.

The rings around the sun were used before to predict the weather. When a ring or halo is seen around the sun and even the moon, it may indicate that rain or snow will be coming soon. It may not be very accurate because other factors also affect the weather but it can sure give one an idea. Just be careful when staring at the halos. It may look interesting but looking at it direct might damage ones eyes.