Heavenly bodies have recently appeared in the sky. Strange, dreamy clouds have been seen glowing in multicoloured streaks in Scotland, northwest England and much further north across parts of Scandinavia. Ramune Sapailaite at Gran in southern Norway photographed a particularly spectacular psychedelic display of these clouds on Tuesday that looked like something from an Edvard Munch painting.
These are rare nacreous clouds, also known as mother of pearl clouds named after their glowing iridescent colours. They are some of the highest clouds on Earth, about 15km to 20km high in the stratosphere where the air is incredibly dry and clouds exceptionally rare.
But at staggeringly low temperatures, about minus 80C, the scarce water in the stratosphere can combine into tiny crystals and, being so high,
