Met Mailbag is your chance to have a Weather Plus Meteorologist answer your weather question. Each Thursday, our NBC Weather Pulse Blog will publish the answers to questions you send us. This week's question was answered by NBC Weather Plus Meteorologist Kristen Cornett.

Question: What are sun dogs?
Submitted by Jamie Reese, Cleveland, Ohio

Answer: Sun dogs, also called mock suns, area pair of brightly colored spots on either side of the sun. They always appear 22 degrees on either side of the sun at the same elevation as the sun.

They are formed when sunlight is bent as it passes through a very specific type of ice crystal in the air. These crystals, called plates, are six sided, or hexagonal and are very flat.

PHOTOS: Sun Dogs

Sun dogs form very similar to halos. The difference is the orientation of the ice crystals. If hexagonal crystals are oriented with their flat faces horizontal, a sundog will be observed...however it the hexagonal crystals are randomly oriented, a halo is observed.

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