Explanation:
If you tried to enter this hall of fog, you would find it dissipates around you.
The hall is actually an
optical illusion created by
sunlight backscattering off of a cloud passing below the peak of
the mountain from which this picture was taken.
Known as
"the glory", the phenomenon is frequently
seen from airplanes.
The ring's center is not visible, but if it were, the shadow of the
observer would appear.
This
shadow would likely change as clouds passed,
creating a faux moving giant known as the
Brocken Spectre.
Pictured
above, several concentric rings of the glory appear to create
a hall for this
mountain king.
The cause of the glory has only been understood recently
and is relatively complex.
Briefly, small droplets of water
reflect,
refract, and
diffract sunlight backwards towards the Sun.
The phenomenon has a
counterpart in astronomy, where looking out from planet Earth
in the direction opposite the Sun yields a bright spot called
the gegenschein.
