Dr. James P. Wickstrom
Mystery of two suns in Chinese sky leaves scientists puzzled
By IBTimes Staff Reporter
Scientists are reportedly struggling to find an explanation to the appearance of two suns in the sky viewed in China a couple of days ago.
The two suns, described by the site Life's Little Mysteries as "one fuzzy and orange, the other a crisp yellow orb" were noted almost next to each other, one perhaps slightly elevated, and were reported on Chinese television.
However, the incident has not yet elicited a complete explanation from scientists. Jim Kaler, an astronomer from the University of Illinois, and one who has published several scholarly works on the day and night sky concedes that though the double image could be a result of optical refraction, it still cannot be completely accounted for.
Mirages as a result of refraction usually happen near the horizon, where the air is thick and particles in the atmosphere bend the light to create the illusion; moreover, in such cases the image appears vertically aligned and not adjacent as in this case. Kaler told the reporter for Life's Little Mysteries, "There must have been some blob of atmosphere somewhere that caused this truly spectacular phenomenon," and described the phenomenon as "intriguing."
Another atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Institute for Satellite and Meteorological Studies, Grant Perry has also expressed some surprise and confusion, saying that it would require certain very peculiar conditions indeed for particles in the air to refract the sunlight in such a way as to make the image appear as it does.
Both scientists however agreed on the fact that it was not an image produced by digital manipulation or some artifice of the photographer.
