Red Crepuscular Rays from an Eclipse

What is happening behind that island? Things were expected and unexpected. The rays of light pictured are called crepuscular rays. The Sun was being partially overshadowed by the Moon late last month. The Sun's rays are bright as they shine through gaps in below-horizon clouds. The red crepuscular rays are likely caused by an abundance of aerosols in Earth's atmosphere scattering away the blue light. A memorable scene featuring both the Moon and the Sun was expected. Clouds obscured the eclipse from this location, which wasn't completely unexpected. The beauty of bright red crepuscular rays emerged after packing up. That island on the horizon is actually two islands.

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The launch of a rocket at sunrise can result in unusual but intriguing images that feature both the rocket and the Sun. The Starlink satellites were carried into low Earth orbit last month when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center. In the featured launch picture, the rocket's exhaust plume glows beyond its projection onto the distant Sun, the rocket itself appears jagged, and the Sun's lower edge shows peculiar ripples. The physical cause of all of these effects is pockets of relatively hot or rarefied air. The sunspot region on the upper left crosses the Sun slowly.