Educational Science

Ultra-rare 'rainbow clouds' light up the Arctic Circle like auroras in stunning new photos

The dark skies in the Arctic Circle recently shone with ethereal multi-colored light. But this jaw-dropping spectacle was not caused by auroras. Instead, the iridescent rainbows were caused by clouds of tiny ice crystals floating higher in the atmosphere than is normally possible. The clouds, known as polar stratospheric clouds...

Brilliant Red Sprite Lightning Caught on Camera

Amazing new photos and video of the elusive red lightning called sprites are helping researchers understand how the mysterious electric bursts form. Sprites last less than a second as they dance on the tops of thunderstorms. Many viewers say the clusters of charged particles look like jellyfish — big, red...

Sprites dance high above thunderstorms, but they’re not furtive mythical creatures. They’re quick bursts of electricity that have left atmospheric scientists in the dark about their origins. New ultra-high-speed video shows sprites form as fast-paced balls of electricity, not streaks or tendrils as previous footage suggested. The discovery challenges current...

Eerie ring of red light flashes like a massive UFO above Italy. What was it?

An enormous, circular halo of eerie red light, which looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, recently flashed in the night sky above Italy. The bizarre disk appeared and disappeared within milliseconds, meaning most people likely missed the strange spectacle. But one person, nature photographer Valter Binotto, managed...

Watch thousands of lightning bolts crackle over Europe in stunning new satellite video

Stunning first videos from a new space-borne instrument designed to improve the monitoring of thunderstorms show the crackle of lightning over Europe, Africa and the Atlantic Ocean. The images were taken by the Meteosat-12 satellite operated by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) from geostationary orbit,...

'Wedge tornado' in Mississippi is the deadliest in more than 50 years

A massive tornado that was nearly a mile (1.2 kilometers) long has killed at least 26 people and injured dozens more after devastating parts of western Mississippi on Friday (March 24) night. The storm is the deadliest in over 50 years in Mississippi, records from the National Weather Service (NWS)...

Gigantic 'solar tornado' taller than 14 Earths raged for 3 days. What caused it?

An enormous solar tornado the size of 14 Earths stacked on top of each other recently raged on the sun's surface for three whole days. The enormous plasma twister may be one of the largest ever recorded. The solar tornado emerged near the sun's north pole on March 15 and...

Scientist Reading the Leaves to Predict Violent Weather

When meteorologist Edward Lorenz set up his computer to model the weather in 1960, he had no idea what a complex problem he was taking on. After a while, he realized that any small change in the starting conditions of his program had a huge impact on the outcome of...

What's the longest lightning bolt ever recorded?

Thunder is impressive, Mark Twain wrote, but it is lightning that does the work. Anyone who's watched a lightning storm will understand what he meant: Lightning is one of nature's most awe-inspiring phenomena, illuminating the skies with its fearsome forks. According to the U.K. Met Office, lightning strikes the planet...

Acid rain: Causes, effects and solutions

Acid rain, or acid deposition, is a broad term that includes any form of precipitation that contains acidic components, such as sulfuric acid or nitric acid. The precipitation is not necessarily wet or liquid; the definition includes dust, gases, rain, snow, fog and hail. The type of acid rain that...