On Saturday afternoon, UAE's skies were lit up by a breathtaking celestial display — a rare 22ºC halo.
The stunning solar halo formed a perfect, luminous ring around the sun, creating a magical scene that left onlookers in awe. According to Ibrahim Al Jarwan, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Emirates Astronomical Society, the optical phenomenon occurs when sunlight refracts through ice crystals in high, thin clouds like cirrus clouds.
One of those lucky enough to capture the spectacle was Ralph Emerson B. De Peralta, a 51-year-old engineer and long-time UAE resident. While Ibrahim spotted the phenomenon in Sharjah, Ralph did so from Abu Dhabi.
"Yesterday, while I was inside my room, I happened to glance outside my window and noticed a distinct, glowing ring around the sun," De Peralta shared. "Recognising it immediately as a sun halo — a rare sight especially in the UAE — I quickly grabbed my camera and rushed outside, even though it was already around 1pm and extremely hot."
Using a pathway lined with large trees as a natural frame, he managed to snap stunning photographs of the phenomenon.
When asked how he instantly recognised the halo, De Peralta said, "I’ve always been fascinated by sky phenomena like the stars, the Milky Way, the moon, and the sun. My wife even jokes that I should have been an astrophysicist!"
Sun halos are caused by sunlight passing through millions of tiny ice crystals in high cirrostratus clouds. These hexagonal ice crystals form these clouds. So, when sunlight gets refracted through those ice crystals a circular ring of light is created around the Sun.
The angle — 22° — is the angular radius of the corona we see around the Sun, not the angle of refraction of the light.
This phenomenon could also be an indication of changes in weather conditions, like an approaching low pressure system.
Khadija Al Hariri, operations manager at the Dubai Astronomy Group, explained that sun halos are unrelated to recent solar storms.
"Sun halos are caused by ice crystals in Earth's atmosphere bending sunlight. Solar storms are caused by activity on the sun — like solar flares and coronal mass ejections — that send charged particles toward Earth, potentially affecting satellites, power grids, and creating auroras," she explained.
"This phenomenon is rare in the UAE because it's usually too hot and dry for the high-altitude ice crystals needed to form a sun halo," she said. "It doesn’t have any direct impact on the sun or space activity — it’s purely a local atmospheric observation."
Ralph mentioned that he last saw the sun halo about two years ago when he was walking around the Al Maryah Island.
Aside from UAE, the rare phenomenon also graced the skies of Aseer in Saudi Arabia on Saturday morning.
