Picture yourself watching a thunderstorm from your window when suddenly, a glowing sphere the size of a basketball floats past your house. It moves slowly, defying gravity, and vanishes with a gentle pop. You’ve just witnessed one of nature’s most perplexing phenomena. Ball lightning has mystified scientists, terrified observers, and sparked countless theories for centuries, ...
Have you ever gazed up at the sky and witnessed what appears to be a flaming rainbow stretching across the horizon? You might think you’re experiencing a supernatural phenomenon or even a dangerous natural disaster. The truth is far more fascinating than fiction. These mesmerizing displays, popularly called “fire rainbows,” are neither fires nor rainbows. ...
NASA’s astronaut, Nichole “Vapor” Ayers, has photographed a spectacular atmospheric event – a large red ‘jellyfish’ sprite soaring above a thunderstorm in North America. The striking image, taken from the International Space Station (ISS) on July 3, 2025, gives scientists a rare view of sprites from the top which is a form of lightning and ...
NASA’s Terra satellite took a stunning picture of the cosmos in May 2015. It showed six Atlantic islands painting the sky with swirling, hypnotic cloud spirals that covered more than 260,000 square miles (670,000 km²). These “von Kármán vortices” are one of the most beautiful atmospheric dances in nature. They got their name from the ...
Gargi Chakravorty
