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An early August morning in Mt. Vernon, Virginia. Photographer Greg Diesel Walck wrote, “Glorious beams this morning at sunrise over the Potomac River.”

A pyrocumulus cloud – sometimes called a fire cloud – forms when intense heat from wildfires causes air to rise. Californians have been seeing these towering clouds this July and August.

Familiar crepuscular rays and less well known anticrepuscular rays are really one and the same.

Draw a line between the 4 bright planets up after sunset now, and you’ll see they make an arc across the sky. In this photo, Michael Seeley in Florida contrasted the arc of planets with that of the Milky Way.

Those beams of light shooting out from the horizon or down from the clouds are called crepuscular rays, or sunrays. Beautiful, mysterious and very noticeable.

Photographer Miska Saarikko titled this image Reaching to the Stars.

Kairo Kiitsak captured an impressive display of noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds, in Simuna, Estonia on July 26, 2018. Noctilucent clouds are seen at high latitudes only from about mid-May to August. Wondrous, if you can catch them!

Becky Gillum captured this double rainbow in Cherokee Lake, Tennessee. She said, “With all the storms we’ve been having, it was only a matter of time until a rainbow appeared.”

Forecast for Mars: dust! This smaller storm appeared on Mars in April 2018, prior to the planet-wide storm happening now.

Astronaut photo of Mars from the International Space Station (ISS), In this image, Mars has been highlighted and enlarged 20 times.

Night sky over South Korea’s Mount Seoraksan.

Milky Way over Biscuit Basin, in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park .

Yesterday’s sunrise over the Potomac River at Fort Hunt, Virginia.