I see skies of blue, clouds of white, bright blessed days and dark sacred nights. I see trees of green, red roses too and the colors of the rainbow so pretty and true. And then i think to myself “what a wonderful world.” Well yea! It is a fascinating world we live in, with some unbelievable sights, not only in the scenery but sometimes we come across such marvels that leave us head scratching. Here is a view at a few such beautiful marvels which are natural i.e non-artificial in the physical sense.
10.Will-o’-the-wisp
These are depiction of ghostly light sometimes seen at night or twilight over bogs, swamps, and marshes. These lights are also sometimes referred to as corpse candles or hobby lanterns. Many sightings have been reported, some were later called hoax as with the Marfa lights ear U.S. Route 67 on Mitchell Flat east of Marfa, Texas, in the United States. But some were deeply studied by scientists and yet remained unexplained. The Hessdalen Lights are unexplained lights (a type of will-o’-the-wisp ) usually seen in the valley of Hessdalen, Norway. These lights are well known and have been recorded and studied by physicists.
Oh Wow, How does this Occur?
Recent explanation attributes the phenomenon to an incompletely understood combustion process in the air involving clouds of dust from the valley floor containing scandium. The oxidation of phosphine and methane, produced by organic decay, can also cause glowing light. Since phosphine spontaneously ignites on contact with the oxygen in air, only small quantities of it would be needed to ignite the much more abundant methane to create ephemeral fires.
9. Mammatus Clouds
They are a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud. Composed primarily of ice, Mammatus Clouds can extend for hundreds of miles in each direction. Mammatus clouds are often harbingers of a coming storm or other extreme weather system. The name mammatus is derived from the Latin mamma (meaning “udder” or “breast”), as some consider there is a resemblance between the characteristic shape of these clouds and the breast of a woman. Mammatus may appear as smooth, ragged or lumpy lobes and may be opaque or semitransparent. Because mammatus occur as a grouping of lobes, the way they clump together can vary from an isolated cluster to a field of mamma that spread over hundreds of kilometers to being organized along a line, and may be composed of unequal or similarly-sized lobes. The individual mammatus lobe average diameters of 1–3 km and lengths on average of 0.5 km. A lobe can last an average of 10 minutes, but a whole cluster of mamma can range from 15 minutes to a few hours. They usually are composed of ice, but also can be a mixture of ice and liquid water or be composed of almost entirely liquid water.
Oh Wow, How does this Occur?
There are multiple hypothesized formation mechanisms. The anvil of a cumulonimbus cloud gradually subsides as it spreads out from its source cloud. As air descends, it warms. However, the cloudy air will warm more slowly than the sub-cloud, dry air. Because of the differential warming, the cloud/sub-cloud layer destabilizes and convective overturning can occur, creating a lumpy cloud-base. That said, cooling due to hydrometeor fallout is a second proposed formation mechanism.
8. Lluvia de Peces
Lluvia de Peces or Rain of Fish is a phenomenon that has been occurring for more than a century on a yearly basis in the country of Honduras. Witnesses of this phenomenon state that it begins with a dark cloud in the sky followed by lightning, thunder, strong winds and heavy rain for two to three hours. Once the rain has stopped, hundreds of living fish are found on the ground. People take the fish home to cook and eat them.
Oh Wow, How does this Occur?
National Geographic sent some professionals to report on this phenomenon. The explanation generally offered was for the rain of fish is meteorogical, in terms of strong winds or waterspouts, as for other accounts of raining animals. The most likely source of the fish is the Atlantic Ocean, about 200km (140 miles) away. But the steam was shocked to discover that all the fish were the same size, around 6 inches and completely blind and were freshwater fish. The experts identified the species but found no record of it in any surrounding bodies of water. So Lluvia de Peces remains unexplained.
7. Fire devil
Also called as fire tornado or fire whirl is a rare phenomenon in which a fire, under certain conditions (depending on air temperature and currents), acquires a vertical vorticity and forms a whirl, or a tornado-like vertically oriented rotating column of air. Fire whirls may be whirlwinds separated from the flames, either within the burn area or outside it, or a vortex of flame, itself.
Oh Wow, How does this Occur?
Most of the largest fire tornados are spawned from wildfires. They form when a warm updraft and convergence from the wildfire are present. An extreme example is the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Japan which ignited a large city-sized firestorm and produced a gigantic fire whirl that killed 38,000 in fifteen minutes in the Hifukusho-Ato region of Tokyo. Not so wow huh?
6. Snow Blades
Nieves Penitentes is the official name given to a snow forming found at high altitudes. They take the form of tall thin blades of hardened snow or ice closely spaced with the blades oriented towards the general direction of the sun. Penitentes can be as tall as a person. These pinnacles of snow or ice grow over all glaciated and snow covered areas in the Dry Andes above 4,000 m. They range in size from a few cm to over five metres. They were first descried by Darwin, in 1839. On March 22, 1835, he had to squeeze his way through snowfields covered in penitentes near the Piuquenes Pass, on the way from Santiago de Chile to the Argentinian city of Mendoza.
Oh Wow, How does this Occur?
The key climatic condition for the differential ablation that leads to the formation of penitentes is that dew point is always below freezing. Thus, snow will sublimate, because sublimation requires a higher energy input than melting. Once the process of differential ablation starts, the surface geometry of the evolving penitente produces a positive feedback mechanism, and radiation is trapped by multiple reflections between the walls acting like solar panels.
5. Darwaza
An area located in the middle of the Karakum desert, about 260 km north from Ashgabat in Turkmenistan give off a glow that can be seen from miles away during the dark night. Approaching near, the heat is well enough to incinerate anyone. Thus the cavern truly called by the locals as the “door to hell”.
Oh Wow, How does this Occur?
The Derweze area is rich in natural gas. While drilling in 1971 geologists accidentally found an underground cavern filled with natural gas. The ground beneath the drilling rig collapsed, leaving a large hole with a diameter of about 70 meters at. To avoid poisonous gas discharge, it was decided to burn the gas. Geologists had hoped the fire would go out in a few days but it has been burning ever since. As geologists ignited in on first so not truly natural but then they claim, the actual fire was set off but now the sun has taken over the burning process.
4. Spotted Lake
In the summer, most of the water in a lake located northwest of Osoyoos in British Columbia evaporates leaving behind huge spots, the spots might sometimes be of different colors. It is located near the city of Osoyoos, beside Highway 3. The magnificence of this lake made it a sacred place for some cults. However, to this day, the beauty inspires us.
Oh Wow, How does this Occur?
Spotted Lake is very highly concentrated with numerous different minerals. It contains some of the highest quantities (in the world) of magnesium sulfate, calcium and sodium sulphates. Magnesium sulfate, which crystallizes in the summer, leaving behind the spots which color according to the mineral concentration. Since in the summer, only the minerals in the lake remain, they harden to form natural “walkways” around and between the spots.
3. Sailing Stones
The sailing stones, also known as sliding rocks, are a geological phenomenon where rocks move in long tracks along a smooth valley floor without human or animal intervention. They have been recorded and studied in a number of places around Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, where the number and length of travel grooves are notable. The force behind their movement is not understood and is the subject of research. Sliding rock trails fluctuate in direction and length. Some rocks which start next to each other start out traveling parallel, but one may abruptly change direction to the left, right, or even back the direction it came from. Length also varies because two similarly sized and shaped rocks could travel uniformly, then one could burst ahead or stop dead in its track. Speed is also an unknown variable.
Oh Wow, How does this Occur?
Various and sometimes idiosyncratic possible explanations have been put forward over the years that have ranged from the supernatural to the very complex. Most hypotheses favored by interested geologists posit that strong winds when the mud is wet are at least in part responsible but oh wait, some stones weigh as much as a human and therefore winds remain just a hypothesis and no actual proof.
2. Blood Rain
Blood rain is a phenomenon where blood is perceived to fall from the sky in the form of rain. Cases have been recorded since Homer’s Iliad , composed ca eighth century BC, and are widespread. Before the 17th century it was generally believed that the rain was actually blood. Literature mirrors cult practice, in which the appearance of blood rain was considered a bad omen, and was used as a tool foreshadowing events, but while some of these may been literary devices, some occurrences are historic.
Oh Wow, How does this Occur?
While most ancient authors, such as Hesiod and Pliny, tended to ascribe the rain to the acts of gods, but scientists now present a wide range of theories including water mixed with iron dust or having fungi and algae cells. But this is a subject of debate
1. Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis
Auroras sometimes called the northern and southern (polar) lights or aurorae are natural beautiful light displays in the sky, usually observed at night, particularly in the polar regions. They typically occur in the ionosphere. The Cree people call this phenomenon the “Dance of the Spirits. Its southern counterpart, the aurora australis or the southern polar lights , has similar properties, but is only visible from high southern latitudes in Antarctica, South America, or Australasia. Auroras can be spotted throughout the world and on other planets. It is most visible closer to the poles due to the longer periods of darkness and the magnetic field.
Oh Wow, How does this Occur?
Auroras are the result of the emissions of photons in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, above 80 km (50 miles), from ionized nitrogen atoms regaining an electron, and oxygen and nitrogen atoms returning from an excited state to ground state.