Saturday 20 June 2009

The Midnight Sun In Leicester, UK,

it should be pitch black but due to 'noctilucent' clouds it is like day break, the shimmering clouds form at an altitude of around 55 miles above sea level and are made up of tiny ice droplets, because they are so high up in the atmosphere the sun is able to illuminate the clouds from below the horizon, called 'noctilucent' clouds, which literally means 'night-shining' in Latin, they are normally spotted in polar regions during the summer months, noctilucent cloud formations are the highest on Earth where temperatures can plunge below -130C (-200F) and winds peak at 300mph, they appear in the mesosphere, which is between 30miles and 50miles above the Earth's surface, just when having watched as many nature/natural world programmes and I think I have seen it all, something stunning like this comes along!

No comments: