Noctilucent Clouds over Poland | Earth Science

Noctilucent Clouds over Poland | Earth Science

Astrophotographer Marek Nikodem: "The noctilucent cloud season is continuing. This morning in Poland, there was quite a display, so good that people on their way to work asked me what those strange clouds were."

At high latitudes in the summer months, iridescent clouds form in a part of the atmosphere roughly 50 to 86 kilometers (30 to 54 miles) above the surface of our planet. Their high altitude allows them to reflect sunlight after the Sun has set. These are called noctilucent or polar mesospheric clouds.

Noctilucent clouds (NLCs), or night shining clouds are tenuous cloud-like phenomena in the upper atmosphere. They consist of ice crystals and from the ground are only visible during astronomical twilight. Noctilucent roughly means "night shining" in Latin. They are most often observed during the summer months from latitudes between ±50° and ±70°. Too faint to be seen in daylight, they are visible only when the observer and the lower layers of the atmosphere are in Earth's shadow while these very high clouds are still in sunlight. Recent studies suggest that increased atmospheric methane emissions produce additional water vapor through chemical reactions once the methane molecules reach the mesosphere—creating, or reinforcing existing, noctilucent clouds.

Image Credit: Marek Nikodem

Location: near Szubin, Poland
Marek's website: https://www.instagram.com/marek.nikodem.com
Date: July 8, 2026

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