Summer in the UK: Noctilucent Clouds Over Merseyside

Noctilucent clouds are tenuous cloud-like phenomena that are the “ragged-edge” of a much brighter and pervasive polar cloud layer called polar mesospheric clouds in the upper atmosphere, visible in a deep twilight.

They are made of crystals of water ice. The name means roughly night shining in Latin.

They are most commonly observed in the summer months at latitudes between 50° and 70° north and south of the equator.

They are the highest clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere, located in the mesosphere at altitudes of around 76 to 85 kilometres (47 to 53 mi).

They are normally too faint to be seen, and are visible only when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the lower layers of the atmosphere are in the Earth’s shadow.

Noctilucent clouds are not fully understood and are a recently discovered meteorological phenomenon; there is no evidence that they were observed before 1885.

Noctilucent clouds can form only under very restrictive conditions; their occurrence can be used as a sensitive guide to changes in the upper atmosphere.

Since they are a relatively recent classification, the occurrence of noctilucent clouds appears to be increasing in frequency, brightness and extent.

ESA ESERO Project: Summer Workshop for Secondary School Science Teachers

The International Space Station, the largest laboratory ever built in space, is the result of many years of cooperation between the USA, Russia, Canada, Japan and Europe.


This illustration shows the Automated Transfer Vehicle, ATV, that carries food, clothing, fuel tanks, air and drinking water to the ISS crew.

The first launch of this supply vessel in 2008 marked the first ever rendezvous and docking of a European spacecraft in orbit.


Credits: V. Bétoulaud

The European Space Agency is providing many innovative and inspiring aids to teachers to enhance their curriculum with space related subjects. Now ESA is inviting educators to a summer workshop at its establishment in the Netherlands from 28 to 30 June 2010.

ESA’s Directorate of Human Spaceflight has been using the International Space Station as a 'classroom in space' for many educational events and for the production of educational material made available to teachers, science educators and all interested.

ISS will continue in orbit till at least 2020 – and the educational side of the ISS will be even stonger in the future as the focus of the ISS activities is being turned from construction to routine operation.

For more information contact ESA directly by following this link