Overview
- The spectacle over Jonggol in Bogor, captured Friday, lasted only minutes as residents filmed and shared the vivid colors online.
- The sighting took place about 50 kilometers southeast of Jakarta in a town near the capital.
- Meteorologist Dominik Jung says the display was an iridescent pileus cloud, a cap that forms over a fast-growing storm cloud.
- The colors appear when sunlight strikes many tiny, near-equal droplets at the right angle, which bends light like a prism.
- Meteorologists say the effect is harmless and not a true rainbow, and they note it is more frequent and often brighter in tropical regions than in temperate zones like Germany.