Workers lay out hundreds of bundles of dyed joss sticks to cure in the sun in Hanoi, Vietnam in the last decade of September 2024. They will next be coated with incense powder made from Canarium sap and charcoal. (Photo by Piyush Paul/Solent News)

Penitentes, or nieves penitentes (Spanish for “penitent-shaped snows”), are a snow formation found at high altitudes. They take the form of tall thin blades of hardened snow or ice, closely spaced with the blades oriented towards the general direction of the sun.

The sun sets over the sea looking towards Lands End viewed from Gwenver beach near Sennen Cove on February 7, 2011 in Cornwall, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

The winter sun rises over the Somerset Levels viewed from Glastonbury Tor on December 10, 2011 in Glastonbury, England. After being hit by winter storms this week, the UK is experiencing colder temperatures but high winds are forecast to return. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

The sun shines on trees that are displaying their autumn colours surrounding Palladian bridge and the lakeside Pantheon at the National Trust's Stourhead on November 3, 2010 near Warminster, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

A handout photo made available by the NASA shows the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASA's Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun, from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, USA, 12 August 2018. Parker Solar Probe is humanity’s first-ever mission into a part of the Sun’s atmosphere called the corona. Here it will directly explore solar processes that are key to understanding and forecasting space weather events that can impact life on Earth. (Photo by Bill Ingalls/EPA-EFE/NASA)

The name “Aiguille du Midi” translates literally as “Needle of the Noon” or “Needle of the South”. It gets its name from its tapered form and from its position when viewed from Chamonix: it approximately indicates noon when the sun passes over its summit.

The rising sun penetrates early morning mist and begins to burn off the first frost of winter in the Cheshire countryside at dawn on 24 October, 2007, Knutsford, England. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)