a large, faintly rainbow-colored band in a wide arc above the sun and appearing to encircle it, at about twice the distance as the familiar 22° halo
As in all colored halos, the arc has its red side directed towards the sun, its blue part away from it.
Supralateral arcs form when sun light enters horizontally oriented, rod-shaped hexagonal ice crystals through a hexagonal base and exits through one of the prism sides.
Interesting, didn't know these!
But honestly, standing under such as sky as in the Wikipedia images, I would quite certainly also feel queasy... ;-)
This isn't exactly how I remember the Friends theme song, but not too far off, either.
Am I the only one being ominously stressed out because the rainbow is inverted?
Inverted rainbows are comparatively rare, but still well documented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supralateral_arc
Interesting, didn't know these!
But honestly, standing under such as sky as in the Wikipedia images, I would quite certainly also feel queasy... ;-)