00:00If nature had its own movie, it would be a mixture of avatars and interstellar, and I'm not kidding.
00:07How else to explain something as surreal as avalanches emitting a blue light or pink lakes?
00:14The fact is that these are not synthesis images, and I will show you how the Earth manages to achieve this.
00:20In October 2024, a guy was lucky enough to be in the right place.
00:26A cold night, and he was able to film a blue avalanche.
00:30Well, it was mostly white, but it quickly emitted a blue light by devaluing the mountain.
00:36Scientists do not know exactly how these blue avalanches occur, but they have a few hypotheses.
00:44Part of the mystery comes from triboluminescence, a light produced by rubbing or breaking an object.
00:51This can happen in different circumstances, for example with ice structures.
00:57It is friction that produces the phenomenon, as when two objects rub against each other.
01:04We then see small sparkles appear. It is a cold light.
01:10This means that it does not come from heat, but simply from pressure or movement.
01:16Sometimes, when the ice cracks or breaks under the effect of pressure, it can produce a small electric charge.
01:23When something disturbs the ice blocks, making them crack, it triggers a reaction.
01:29The trapped ions are charged particles, and when they are suddenly released, they are put into motion.
01:35This important release of energy is at the origin of lightning. In this case, a blue glow, or a kind of flash.
01:43All this happens at an incredible speed, and it is therefore very rare to witness this phenomenon.
01:50In June 2024, the Americans witnessed a massive appearance of goats.
01:55This only happens every 13 or 17 years. Goats spend most of their life cycle underground.
02:01When they are still nymphs, they can spend several years feeding on roots.
02:06Some species can spend up to 17 years underground before being ready to surface and officially become adults.
02:13But in 2024, 13-year-old and 17-year-old goats appeared at the same time.
02:19And since 13 and 17 are the first numbers, this event only occurs once every 220 years.
02:26Forests have become incredibly noisy. Indeed, the goats can be found singing anywhere, at a sound volume ranging from 80 to 120 decibels.
02:36They usually sing in groups, which explains why the noise is so powerful.
02:41One person who attended this event said that she had screamed with all her might in the forest.
02:48She couldn't hear herself.
02:50When the goats come out of the ground, the males vibrate their abdomen to attract the females.
02:55With millions of insects singing in chorus, it was a real natural symphony.
03:00Some people in the region believed that these goats were jumping and talking about infestation.
03:10In the south, in Senegal, in Africa, there is a unique lake.
03:15Upon arrival, you could have the impression of leaving a spaceship and landing on an unknown planet.
03:21After all, have you ever seen pink water?
03:24Lake Redba, or Lake Rose, as the inhabitants call it, has become famous all over the world for its particular color.
03:32And yes, you can swim there if you want.
03:35But know that the water is extremely salty.
03:38Lake Redba is known to be one of the saltiest lakes in the world, with a salinity rate of about 40%.
03:46And in case you're wondering why the water is pink, I assure you that this is not supernatural.
03:52It's actually due to the high levels of salt.
03:55The algae known as Dunaliella Salina is responsible for this pink hue.
04:00These algae produce red pigments that absorb sunlight, giving the lake its bright pink color.
04:07But if you want to admire the lake when it is the brightest, you have to go there during the dry season, between the months of November and June.
04:15The other months, the rainwater dilutes the pigments, and the color is much less vivid.
04:20You can also find a pink candy lake in Western Australia.
04:24It has also been crowned as the 10th most supernatural site in the world.
04:29Lake Hillier has the shape of a footprint and is more than 550 meters long.
04:34Its pink color really stands out next to the dark blue ocean that is next to it.
04:42Hey, look over here. You have an idea of what it is.
04:46Try to guess. Okay, it looks like a river, doesn't it?
04:49Yet it doesn't look like flowing water.
04:52When the inhabitants saw this for the first time, they didn't know what it was.
04:56So, to make things easier, they simply called it the Sand River.
05:02It was a good guess, but it turns out that it is more or less an optical illusion.
05:07It's not sand, but it's not exactly water either.
05:11In arid environments, it is indeed quite rare for hail to fall.
05:16And when it happens, you can then see thousands and thousands of floating hail.
05:21To put it simply, hail is only frozen rain that falls in the form of small ice cubes.
05:27It looks pretty magical, doesn't it?
05:33Isn't it crazy that something as beautiful as the aurora borealis is the result of a violent encounter?
05:39Yes, the aurora borealis are actually caused by solar storms.
05:44Here's how it works.
05:46The sun, this giant gas ball, sometimes ejects pieces of plasma into space.
05:52When this plasma moves away from the sun, we talk about solar storms.
05:56These storms cross space, passing near Mercury and Venus, before reaching Earth.
06:02When these violent storms hit the Earth's magnetic shield, an amazing phenomenon occurs.
06:08The particles from the sun are trapped by the magnetic field.
06:12They collide with the atoms and molecules of the Earth's atmosphere,
06:17which creates auroras, especially near the north and south poles.
06:21From the Earth, these lightnings look like colorful flashing lights in the sky.
06:27But that's not really what's going on.
06:29If you zoom in, you'll see millions of tiny lightnings that follow each other at a dizzying speed.
06:36The aurora borealis also emit sounds.
06:39It's a mixture of gurgling, crackling, and rumbling, like a strange radio signal.
06:44Here's the noise a solar storm makes as it crashes into our atmosphere.
06:49Thor, does that ring a bell?
06:51I imagine he lives inside the natural phenomenon we're going to talk about now.
06:55Sometimes, when a volcano erupts, it can be accompanied by huge thunderbolts.
07:01Scientists then talk about volcanic lightning.
07:04And they wonder why it happens.
07:07One of their hypotheses is that when a volcano erupts, it projects debris into the atmosphere.
07:13These charges then react with other charges already present in the air, which can cause lightning.
07:19Pretty cool, right?
07:21The first time someone witnessed such a phenomenon was during a Vesuvian eruption in 1979 AD.
07:31One more thing, rainbows.
07:33Of course, we have the rainbow in the shape of a semicircle.
07:37It's the most common.
07:39But if you're lucky, you might one day see a circular rainbow.
07:43They usually occur at high altitudes, where the horizon line doesn't cut the rainbow in half.
07:50Oh yes, and there's also the possibility of a lunar rainbow.
07:54It's an extraordinary spectacle.
07:56It usually occurs during full moons, when the light from our satellite is at its maximum.
08:01What we see then is a white arc following the outer edge of the moon.
08:06A truly breathtaking phenomenon.
08:09NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
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