Upside down rainbows and other unusual sights

[Barbara]

That's good that Cyprian is very honest about this point. Same for us all "laypeople" in this particular astronomical area.
Maria is really informing us here, as you are doing so well on political and social events.

[Maria]

July noctilucent clouds in the Northern Hemisphere are spectacular.

Someone said that Van Gogh did copy what he saw in the skies. Perhaps they were noctilucent clouds.

Summer is the season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs), and July is the month when they are often at their best. Example: These telltale electric-blue ripples appeared over Carnikava, Latvia, on July 3rd:

http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php ... &year=2015

[Maria]

Sprites and trolls - yes a space weather event - take a look at these photos:

This shows just how high sprites can go. The photo shows their red forms reaching all the way from the thunderstorm below to a layer of green airglow some 100 km above Earth's surface. This means sprites touch the edge of space, alongside auroras, meteors and noctilucent clouds. They are a true space weather phenomenon. A few minutes after the astronauts saw the sprites, they spotted a related creature--a "Troll." It jumped up to the left of the sprites:

"Trolls are also known as 'secondary transient luminous events," explains Oscar van der Velde, a member of the Lightning Research Group at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. "They are occasionally observed alongside big clusters of sprites, and they can reach 40-60 km high." Van der Velde says that sprites can actually pull Earth's ionosphere down toward the thunderstorm. When the gap shrinks, and the local electric field intensifies, Trolls appear.

Reference: http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php ... &year=2015

[Maria]

FIRE RAINBOW

ISLE OF PALMS, SC (WCSC) - http://www.nbc12.com/story/29803479/rar ... &kdntuid=1

If you were looking toward the sky over the Lowcountry on Sunday, you may have seen an unusual and rare spectacle: a "fire rainbow."

Viewers across the area submitted photos of the phenomenon, also known as "iridescent clouds." To some, the cloud resembled a multi-colored angel hovering overhead.

[Maria]

Look at this picture taken by Martin Popek in Nýdek, the Czech republic.

Doesn't this look like a horrible forest fire?

Scroll down for the answer.

No fire. These are sprites located high above thunderclouds where they reach up to the ionosphere.

Inhabiting the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere alongside noctilucent clouds, meteors, and some auroras, sprites are a true space weather phenomenon. Some researchers believe they are linked to cosmic rays: subatomic particles from deep space striking the top of Earth's atmosphere produce secondary electrons that, in turn, could provide the spark that triggers sprites.

Although sprites have been seen for at least a century, most scientists did not believe they existed until after 1989 when sprites were photographed by cameras onboard the space shuttle.

http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php ... &year=2015

[Barbara]

Amazing photos, Maria ! The fire rainbow pictured DOES look like an Archangel ! It's the first time I ever 'saw any image in the clouds' about which others have raved. This one is special.

The sprites add quite a lot of pizzazz wherever they are evident !

[Maria]

These nacreous clouds are signs of God's wonderful world.

We should see more of these as we head into another mini-ice age called a maunder minimum.

Also known as "nacreous" or "mother of pearl" clouds, icy PSCs form in the lower stratosphere when temperatures drop to around minus 85ºC. That's how cold it has to be for ice crystals to form in the very dry stratosphere. High-altitude sunlight shining through tiny ice particles _10µm across produce the characteristic bright iridescent colors by diffraction and interference. ...

"Polar stratospheric clouds far outshine and have much more vivid colours than ordinary iridescent clouds, which are very much poor relations and seen frequently all over the world," writes atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. "Once seen they are never forgotten."

http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php ... &year=2015