This is a photo where a cloud appears to be different colors. This is a rare phenomenon known as iridescent clouds and it can show unusual colors vividly or a whole spectrum of colors at the same time. These clouds are formed with small water droplets of nearly the same size. When the Sun is in the right position and mostly hidden by thick clouds, these thinner clouds significantly diffract sunlight in a nearly coherent manner, with different colors being deflected by different amounts. Thus, different colors will come to the observer from slighly different directions. Many clouds start with uniform regions that could show iridescence but quickly become too thick, too mixed, or too far from the Sun to show these different colors. This photo was taken last year from the Top of the World Highway outside Dawson CIty, in the Yukon Territory in Northern Canada.
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