Iceland horses play on a meadow of a stud farm in Obernhain near Frankfurt, Germany, as the sun rises Thursday, July 23, 2020. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)
Wayne Painter, 70, saw the sun set beneath lenticular clouds 20km wide in Tasmania, Australia in November 2021. Some likened the image to a near-miss with Mars. (Photo by Wayne Painter/Kennedy News)
Smeared in colored powder fashionable women wearing sun glasses celebrate Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, in the Encino section of Los Angles on Sunday, March 24, 2024. (Photo by Richard Vogel/AP Photo)
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez Bezos during the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, US, on Thursday, July 10, 2025. (Photo by Brendan McDermid /Reuters)
Maya Jama reaches for the skies in a rainbow swimming costume. Presenter Maya posed in the sun during a getaway trip to Ibiza on August 19, 2025. (Photo by Instagram)
Jolie from China, who says she is afraid of the sun, stands near the Colosseum amid a heatwave in Rome, Italy on June 20, 2024. (Photo by Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters)
Women take a photo in the late afternoon sun during the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 17, 2017 in Indio, California. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
A light pillar is a visual phenomenon created by the reflection of light from ice crystals with near horizontal parallel planar surfaces. The light can come from the Sun (usually at or low to the horizon) in which case the phenomenon is called a sun pillar or solar pillar. It can also come from the Moon or from terrestrial sources such as streetlights.