Spider silk from "ballooning" spiders 🌤️🕷️
Many species of spiders, especially small or young ones, travel by releasing fine silk threads into the air. Warm rising air currents (thermals) can lift the silk, allowing them to “fly” over long distances. This is called ballooning. When there are a lot of spiders doing this at once, the sky can look like it's full of floating, glimmering webs — sometimes even appearing to “fall” from the sky or sparkle around the sun. This happens most often: On warm, sunny days after rain In open fields or rural areas During late summer or early autumn (but can happen at other times) The silk is harmless to humans and will usually disperse quickly.
Here’s why it looked like the webs were circling the sun: Silk catching the light: Spider silk is extremely thin and reflective. When sunlight hits the strands, they refract and scatter light, making them shimmer like halos or circles around the sun. Air currents swirling: The threads don't fall straight down. They drift and spiral with the wind and rising warm air, creating the illusion of circling.
Perspective effect: Because the sun is a strong focal point in the sky, our eyes naturally align floating particles (like silk, dust, or pollen) with it, making it appear as though they’re radiating from or circling the sun.
Fun fact: In some places, people call this phenomenon "angel hair" because it looks so surreal.
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