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.

A Bull Frog hops around as Carlos Costly #13 of Honduras brings the ball up against the USA at Sun Life Stadium on October 8, 2011 in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Photo by Marc Serota/Getty Images)

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)

Singer Dua Lipa and her fiancé, Callum Turner, soak up the sun and unwind together during their lively vacation in Ibiza, Spain on August 14, 2025. (Photo by Gtres/Backgrid UK)

Brazen seagulls, pigeons and starlings bask in the afternoon sun undeterred by a plastic Owl bird scarer on the roof of Liverpool Coastguard Station at Crosby on January 13, 2012 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

A tourist watches as the moon passing in front of the sun as it approaches a full solar eclipse in the northern Australian city of Cairns November 14, 2012. (Photo by Tim Wimborne/Reuters)

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)

A girl wears a mask to help protect herself from the new coronavirus jogs as the sun sets over the Mediterranean Sea coastline, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 14, 2020. (Photo by Hassan Ammar/AP Photo)