Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday
on Twitter Soon you may see an eerie spectacle on clear summer
nights if you are located at latitudes between 50° and 70° north
and south of the equator: Noctilucent Clouds. These ghostly
apparitions are a delight to see and are quite rare. It is
incredibly difficult to predict exactly when they will appear,
but we do know they should begin to appear soon. The season for
Noctilucent Clouds (Noctilucent = Latin for “Night Shining”)
starts early June and continues into late July. They are seen
just after dusk, or before dawn and an apparition can last
around an hour. These mysterious clouds, with their bizarre
tenuous wispy shapes reminiscent of ripples in sand or the
changing surface of a pool of water, spread like a glowing web
across the northern sky. Colours can range from brilliant
whites, with tinges of blue, pink and orange. Formed by tiny ice
crystals, they are the highest clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere,
located in the mesosphere at alti