Halo

Credit to NASA & Goran Strand 2022 December 21

Explanation: Happy Solstice! Today is the December solstice, marking an astronomical beginning of summer in the southern hemisphere and winter in the north. On its yearly trek through planet Earth's skies, at this solstice the Sun reaches its southern most declination, 23.5 degrees south, at 21:48 UTC. About 4 days ago the Sun was near this seasonal southern limit and so only just above the horizon at local noon from Ostersund in central Sweden. This view looking over the far northern lakeside city finds the midday Sun with a beautiful solar ice halo. Naturally occurring atmospheric ice crystals can produce the tantalizing halo displays, refracting and reflecting the sunlight through their hexagonal geometry. Still, with the Sun low and near the horizon in the clear sky, likely sources of the ice crystals producing this intense halo are snow cannons. Operating at a local ski area, the snowmaking machines create a visible plume at the top of the nearby island Froson toward the right side of the panorama.

I am pretty sure on Facebook I saw a post related to something similar - it seems a lot of comments, some said it was fake, some said it was AI, and more.... In this day and age, do you ever wonder how we can best determine what is real and what is not? Just like for something so rare, so magical, does it make it unreal? If we have never seen it, does it mean it doesn't exist? Would AI / Deep Fake, make us less curious? I mean we humans tend to have a "set route" that helps with our decision process, but do we challenge it enough? Or could it becoming like oh shit, every moment is between real and unreal, which makes it even more difficult to navigate?

This actually goes beyond just digital, cyber.... Don't believe it?

"Bacteria"? "Infectious"?

At this point - what would be your initial thought? Good? bad? Neutral? Real? Fake?

Then let's add in "Bacteria can kill you..."? Is it becoming more negative? Is it more fear? Or the other spectrum - Not really? Maybe?

If we then add "Bacteria (XYZ) is good".... well, that is indeed true as some bacteria are critical to our survival. Does it change the perspective? Or at least prompts for more questions?

If this is the case, do you ever wonder how much we could have been missed in the past? Or misunderstood something (even if we think we know it today)... I woke up today and thought about Archaeology and what it could meant for others, both past and future...

Then I realised this site - quoted "As Winston Churchill famously said, “The farther back you look, the further ahead you can see.” We can already see much farther back — and ahead — much more clearly than we once could. Soon we will be able to see farther and more clearly still."

PS: My 2cents - I think it can now be redefined - what we see, could well be untrue too, or fully understood. What was clear could well be unclear, with room to explore more. But the difference is our understandings would have been improved significantly, expanded, beyond what was once our thought process was capable to even imagined.