A sun dog, or parhelion, is an interesting meteorological phenomenon that has been observed for thousands of years. When the sun is low and setting, bright lights to the left and right of your view of the sun may appear, giving the appearance of multiple suns. These bright images are actually refracted hexagonal plate-like ice crystals in high, cold cirrus clouds. As ice crystals sink through the air, the light is horizontally refracted, causing the appearance of sun dogs, or parhelion. Sun dogs can occur anywhere in the world, given the proper conditions. A similar phenomenon, halos, occur when the ice crystals orient themselves randomly from the sun, refracted the light as a halo around it. The sun light shining through ice crystals refracts the light similarly as refracted rain presents rainbows.
The most interesting aspect I found of this phenomenon was its history. For thousands of years authors, playwrights, and philosophers have documented and attempted to interpret parhelion. I can imagine that without modern technology and advances in science, the appearance of multiple suns would be quite perplexing. In Cicero’s play, On the Republic, he mentions parhelion in comparing the credibility of politicians. Edward IV, convinced his troops in the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross in 1461, that the appearance of the parhelion was the presence of the Trinity, which then encouraged them to win a decisive victory. Jacob Hutter, a Christian martyr in the 1520s, also compared the parhelion observance to a Christian concept as he was being tortured and persecuted for acting out against the Roman Catholic Church. Many other pre-scientific age observations were made in an attempt to explain sun dogs, or parhelions, however it wasn’t until much later, in the 1800s and 1900s that a meteorological explanation based on understanding of clouds was able to accurately interpret the phenomenon.
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