BEAUTIFUL NEW SKY LIGHTS ARE HAPPENING RIGHT NOW

Some of the most Beautiful Lights in the universe are happening right now up in the sky. You can see them yourself... but we warn you, they will put any holiday lights you see to shame. From colliding galaxies, to glow-in-the dark clouds, to spectacular meteor showers, check them out below... (and, of course, high above!)

COLLIDING GALAXIES

NGC 2207 and IC 2163, two galaxies located approximately 130 million light years from earth, are in the process of colliding. As they interact, they have produced 3 supernova explosions in the past 15 years.

This awesome pair has also produced volumes of super bright X-ray lighted phenomena, known as “ultraluminous X-ray sources” (ULXs), whose beauty has been captured by the Chandra Observatory.

These colliding galaxies are creating lots of new stars -- about 24 per year. Many observed now are less than 10 million years old -- youngsters as compared to our sun, which is about halfway through its 10 billion year life cycle.

Read more about these colliding galaxies in a paper by Stefano Mineo of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Saul Rappaport and Alan Levine and Jeroen Homan from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); David Pooley from Sam Houston State University; and Benjamin Steinhorn from Harvard Medical School, published in the Astrophysical Journal.

GEMINID METEOR SHOWER

The Geminid Meteor Shower is happening in the sky right now. It is one of the most intense annual meteor showers, lighting up our heavens every December, as it has since the first reports of its sightings in the mid 1800’s.

Watch as over 120 meteors streak past every hour at its peak.

While most meteors break off from comets, the Geminids appear to have broken off of the 3200 Phatheon asteroid. The Geminids are more massive than any other meteor shower that passes through our atmosphere as well, outweighing other streams by up to a factor of 500!

You can see the Geminids light show from anywhere on Earth, but they will be especially radiant in the Northern hemisphere and especially on the Eastern seaboard. They seem to emanate from near the Gemini constellation, hence their name. But much mystery remains as to their true origins.

If you can’t get out into a dark night sky, either because you live in a bright city or because you’d rather stay cozy on your couch, you can watch the Geminids on any number of live broadcasts on the web, including Slooh, an online community observatory.

Watch them tonight or tomorrow night, because after that you will need to wait for them to streak past again next year.

NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS

An extraordinarily beautiful type of cloud, the noctilucent cloud, glows with an otherworldly electric blue light. Noctilucent (aka “night light”) clouds form ice crystals around particles of dust left from meteors.

They are the highest clouds, floating 47 to 53 miles above our planet in the mesosphere. They can only be spotted, under very specific light conditions and places, at dusk.

Noctilucent clouds are giving us a gorgeous light show right now as they shimmer high above Antarctica and Australia. We can see them in the northern hemisphere only during July and August.

The glowing clouds are only visible during the solstices because this is when sunlight is able to reach the upper atmosphere while the ground is still dark and the upper atmosphere is still very cold.

These special clouds have recently been found to be teleconnectors, influencing weather patterns at distant locations, which can stretch from the north to south poles. For example, NASA has observed a correlation between temperature in Indiana and the appearance of noctilucent clouds in Antarctica. And it is believed that they influenced last winter’s distorted polar vortex.

Scientists have observed that these clouds are getting brighter and lower, which they believe may be attributed to global warming.

If you want to see these beautiful lights, you must look up during deep twilight, between 75 and 150 minutes after sunset or before sunrise. You can contribute to science by noting their form and appearance and reporting your observations to the Noctilucent Cloud Observing Network (NLCNET).

Read more about Beautiful Lights, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink,Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including 10 Extraordinary Lighting Designs to Delight You Now.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Darkness in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 12.21.2014. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!

PHOTO CREDITS:

1. Photo: Courtesy of NASA. Colliding Galaxies.
2. Photo: Courtesy of NASA. Colliding Galaxies.
3. Photo: Courtesy of Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Colliding Galaxies.
4. Photo: Courtesy of NASA. Colliding Galaxies.
5. Photo: Courtesy of NASA. Colliding Galaxies.
6. Photo: Courtesy of NASA. Geminid Meteor Shower.
7. Photo: by Bill Gracey. Star Trails During A Meteor Shower.
8. Photo: by nate2b. Double Geminid Meteors over Twin Joshua Trees.
9. Photo: by Dirk Essl. Geminids over Walchensee.
10. Photo: Courtesy of UFO Sightings Hotspot. Geminid Meteor Shower.
11. Photo: by Adam Block. Screen Shot of Perseid Meteor Shower 2013 at the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter.
12. Photo: by Terje Nesthus. Noctilucent Clouds.
13. Photo: by David Baird. Noctilucent Cloud.
14. Photo: by Alex Chase. Noctilucent Clouds.
15. Photo: by Paolo Margari. Noctilucent Clouds.
16. Photo: Courtesy of NASA/HU/VT/CU/LASP. Noctilucent clouds over Antarctica as seen in November, 2014 by NASA’s AIM spacecraft.
17. Photo: Courtesy of NASA. Noctilucent Clouds.