APOD: 2026 October 20 – An Anticrepuscular Rainbow Fan

What this means

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Official release

Source material from NASA. The wording below is the issuer’s statement.

APOD

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

An Anticrepuscular Rainbow Fan

Explanation: This is an unusual rainbow. For one thing, the rainbow is not complete, appearing only in a sunlit fan -- but that by itself is not very unusual. What is most unusual is the fake location of the Sun. The Sun appears to be toward the front, just below those hills -- but it is not. That is not how rainbows work. Rainbows involve a backward reflection from falling rain, so that the Sun must really be behind you. In this case, gaps between clouds near the setting Sun allowed rays to cross the entire sky and appear to converge in front, an unusual phenomenon called anticrepuscular rays. The photo was taken with a phone last week at sunset in Presenzano, Italy. The seemingly reverse rainbow was noticed when hanging up laundry.

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