The lunar halo traps Venus

* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
26 November 2023 Sunday 16:07
9 Reads
The lunar halo traps Venus

* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia

At midnight the moon was visible and, below to the right, Venus, a scene framed by the halo, as we can see in this series of photographs in La Vanguardia Readers' Photos captured in Manlleu, in the Osona region.

The halo is caused by ice particles suspended in the troposphere that refract light, generating a spectrum of colors around the moon, although it also happens with the sun.

As can be seen in the snapshots, it is an optical effect in the shape of a disk around the moon and has an iridescent ring on its outer circumference.

The lunar halo is usually seen in cold places, such as Antarctica, Alaska, Greenland, northern Scandinavia, boreal areas of Russia and Canada, although it has also been visible in countries with tropical climates. In fact, it can occur anywhere given the right atmospheric conditions.

It must be taken into account that the Moon and Venus are the two brightest celestial bodies in the sky after the Sun. The Moon is the only natural satellite of the Earth. With an equatorial diameter of 3,476 km, it is the fifth largest satellite in the solar system. The Moon is in a synchronous relationship with the Earth, that is, it always shows the same face towards the planet.

In this case, we are almost at the full moon, which will occur this Monday, November 27 at exactly 10:16 a.m. and under the sign of Gemini, according to data from the astronomical agenda of the National Geographic Institute (IGN).

This phenomenon is known as the Beaver Moon, according to the native peoples of North America. The Native Americans gave names to the moons.

The lunar halo and Venus shine in these images above the bell tower of the Puig-agut sanctuary in Manlleu, the first temple of its kind in Spain to be dedicated to the Sacred Heart. The direction of the work was carried out by the architect August Font y Carreras, who used a neo-Gothic style with some Romanesque and even neoclassical facets, inspired by the French basilica of Tarbes.