Chelyabinsk, a city made famous by a meteorite that exploded there two years ago this month, witnessed a rare phenomenon Tuesday: three suns lit up the morning sky.
The optical illusion, caused by ice crystals refracting light into the winter sky, gave sun-gazers triple vision.
The phenomenon was captured in photos taken by local residents and uploaded to Instagram.
The temperature in the Ural Mountain city was around negative 25 degrees Celsius (-13 F) and the sky was clear, enabling the effect to occur, state news agency TASS reported.
The ice crystals that caused the illusion are too small to be seen by the naked eye, but have strong refractory power in large quantities.
In February 2013 an asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere and exploded over the Chelyabinsk region with an estimated power of 20 to 30 times that of an atomic bomb.
The shock wave reportedly damaged thousands of buildings in the area and injured some 1,500 people, and videos of the incident were shown on news reports all over the world.
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