Timelapse: Watch Noctilucent Clouds Cover the Entire Sky

By Nancy Atkinson - August 25, 2014 at 10:02 AM UTC | Planetary Science
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This year, the noctilucent cloud season has been especially eventful, and this new timelapse from Swedish astrophotographer

Göran Strand

shows these "night-shining" clouds covering the entire sky over the course of 2 hours.

"On the 27th of July 2014 I saw some of the most beautiful Noctilucent Clouds I've ever seen," Göran said via email. "They emerged shortly after sunset and after a while they covered the entire sky."

In the movie you can see an all-sky timelapse view that shows how these clouds changed during the evening.

See some gorgeous still photos from that night, below:

Noctilucent clouds are wispy, glowing tendrils of high-altitude ice crystals that shine long after the Sun has set. They appear in upper latitudes only and form about 83 km (51 miles) up in the atmosphere. The icy clouds are illuminated by the Sun when it is just below the horizon, giving the clouds their "night-shining" properties.

Also called polar mesospheric clouds, these are the highest cloud formations in the atmosphere. They've been associated with rocket launches and space shuttle re-entries, and another theory is that they might also be associated with meteor activity.

[caption id="attachment_114105" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

Noctilucent clouds over Sweden on July 27, 2014. Credit and copyright: Göran Strand.[/caption]

See more of Goran's work at

his website

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Facebook: Twitter: http://twitter.com/Astrofotografen

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com