The ABC is reporting an incredible sight in the skies over east Victoria, in the Gippsland area. It looks like a UFO, but it's entirely natural.
No, it's not chemtrails. Instead, it's a type of cloud called a Fallstreak Hole. You may recognize that it glimmers in a way that's similar to the contrails of jets. That's because a similar phenomenon causes it.
That rainbow look is the result of water crystals in the clouds freezing and refracting the light. Those frozen crystals have also made one patch of the cloud slightly heavier, pulling it downward from the rest of the cloud layer, and giving it that odd, punch-out look.
Contrails are also caused by frozen water droplets hanging in the air, gleaming in the sunlight. But contrails happen when warm air is released with jet exhaust and collides with supercooled water in the stratosphere. This causes the water to freeze instantly, and thus you can see a long trail of frozen vapor where a plane just flew overhead.
Source
Photo by Peter Fell via ABC News and io9
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A fallstreak hole, also known as a hole punch cloud, punch hole cloud, skypunch, canal cloud or cloud hole, is a large circular or elliptical gap that can appear in cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds. Such holes are formed when the water temperature in the clouds is below freezing but the water has not frozen yet due to the lack of ice nucleation particles (see supercooled water). When ice crystals do form it will set off a domino effect, due to the Bergeron process, causing the water droplets around the crystals to evaporate: this leaves a large, often circular, hole in the cloud.
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