A Full Circle Rainbow over Norway

Have you ever looked at a rainbow? The top part of a rainbow is usually visible from the ground. The whole circle of a rainbow can be seen from the air. A rainbow was captured by a drone in a rain shower over the islands of Norway. The rainbow has a full diameter of 84 degrees. The sun is in the opposite direction from the rainbow. A second rainbow that was more faint and color-reversed could be seen outside the first.

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Explanation: Charles Messier described the 88th entry in his 18th century catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters as a spiral nebula without stars. Of course the gorgeous M88 is now understood to be a galaxy full of stars, gas, and dust, not unlike our own Milky Way. In fact, M88 is one of the brightest galaxies in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster some 50 million light-years away. M88's beautiful spiral arms are easy to trace in this sharp cosmic portait. The arms are lined with young blue star clusters, pink star-forming regions, and obscuring dust lanes extending from a yellowish core dominated by an older population of stars. Spiral galaxy M88 spans over 100,000 light-years.