Residents of the capital can see a rare natural phenomenon
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© ru-facts.com
Finally. Elusive noctilucent clouds, nature is so not completely elucidated by science, lit up the capital on Wednesday night. Noctilucent clouds are the first of June to 15 July, at other times they do not see. This year, they were seen in the north of Russia and the Urals, and in Moscow - all was not and was not, and seemed to take place and the season without them. But suddenly bright, complex layered structure of noctilucent clouds appeared about 23 hours in the northwest. It was a really beautiful: the left is still a young moon, the right calling Venus and Jupiter, and between them as though someone has sketched out a silver wool.

On the noctilucent clouds science for a long time I did not pay attention. But in mid-June 1908 in the Tunguska meteorite struck the earth, which is still hotly debated. In St. Petersburg, after his fall came the night suddenly so light that even accustomed to the night light Petersburgers were stunned. The light came from the unknown clouds. When the researchers calculated the distance to them, it turned out that they hang over the planet at an altitude of 80 km! That is already far into the stratosphere! Where there is a cloud?

In our time with the help of satellites, we discovered that the clouds are composed primarily of ice crystals. The most common hypothesis: the ice is condensed on particles of meteoric dust, which just at this altitude and flies. After the meteors burn up at altitudes of 90 to 80 km, and, apparently, for the time being the products of combustion and remain there. However, with the meteoric theory is not going smoothly. For example, last year, the earth passed through the tail of comet dead ISON, from what awaited meteor shower (and it was, albeit weak), and very strong noctilucent clouds. But actually it was not. But after a very powerful volcanic eruptions they appear.

But while science does not understand how at such a height as much water to get thick ice clouds. Also, it does not fully understand why they can be seen only in our latitudes, and only about June 21: Of course, it helps that the sun illuminates the sky above the horizon, because shallow plunges under it, but this explanation is not enough. In 1978 he assumed that noctilucent clouds - it's all a mirage, and last year there was a hypothesis, which argues that noctilucent clouds are not just seen until 1908, they actually did not have until 1908. They say that the Tunguska meteorite has brought the atmosphere of methane, which we breathe, and since then, it was he who served as a factor in the condensation of ice. In other words, the mysterious Tunguska body greatly changed our earth!