Photographer Bertrand Kulik has recently taken this stunning shot of an amazing horizontal rainbow—as opposed to the more common arched variety—beside the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
While this rainbow may look unusual, NASA clarifies that this is actually just a normal rainbow—it merely looks straight and horizontal because it is a low rainbow, which means that only the very top of it is visible.
“It's uncommon appearance is caused by the Sun being unusually high in the sky during the rainbow's creation. Since every rainbow's center must be exactly opposite the Sun, a high Sun reflecting off of a distant rain will produce a low rainbow where only the very top is visible—because the rest of the rainbow is below the horizon.”
To learn more about this incredible natural phenomenon, head over to NASA’s “Astronomy Picture of the Day” page.
[via NASA]