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This Monday we could see this beautiful image of the beautiful sunrise with crepuscular rays on Gavà beach. Family walk by the sea, with the solar pillar, which can also be seen in the same photograph in La Vanguardia’s Readers’ Photos.
As we can see, in the same sunrise two phenomena come together: the crepuscular rays and the reflections of the sun on the water of the Mediterranean Sea.
Crepuscular rays, in atmospheric optics, are rays of sunlight that appear to radiate from a single point in the sky. These rays flow through openings in clouds (especially stratocumulus) or between other objects. They are columns of sunlit air separated by dark regions of cloud shadow.
The name comes from its frequent appearances during twilight hours (sunrise and sunset), when the contrasts between light and darkness are the most obvious.
For its part, a pillar of light is an atmospheric optical phenomenon in which a vertical beam of light appears to extend above and/or below a light source.
The effect is created by the reflection of light from small ice crystals that are suspended in the atmosphere or that comprise high-altitude clouds (for example, cirrostratus or cirrus clouds). If the light comes from the sun (usually when it is near or even below the horizon), the phenomenon is called a solar pillar, as in this case in Gavà.
Furthermore, in this case, the photograph has been captured just at the moment when one of the two walkers passes by the solar pillar, which seems to act as a shadow for the person.
