K D Mix, a friend of Doyle Fanning (Member 2,645), spotted a patch of iridescence above one of the red rock walls of the Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, US. Doyle tells us that the word Chelly (pronounced like ‘Shay’) in the canyon’s name is a Spanish adaptation of the Navajo word Tséyiʼ (pronounced ‘Tsay-ee’). This translates literally to ‘inside the rock’.

The canyon is a place of deep spiritual and ancestral significance for the Navajo (Diné) people of this region and other indigenous groups before them. ‘It looks to me,’ said Doyle, ‘as if these clouds are rising out of the rock to greet my friend and her companions.’ Cloud iridescence like this is the result of sunlight diffracting around and travelling through the tiny ice crystals or supercooled water droplets as it shines through thin cloud like this patch of Cirrocumulus. ‘The romantic in me,’ added Doyle, ‘wants to believe the canyon has been sending up this welcoming to people for 5,000 years.’