1. Russian Wetlands
The Russian Wetlands are an area that differ from what you might expect from a Russian landscape, and these wetlands are quite a unique looking place.
2. Majils Al Jinn Cave
[Note the people at the bottom of the light shafts, for a sense of scale]
Located in Oman, in a remote area of the Selma Plateau, this is the second largest known underground chamber in the world, said to be big enough to fit the great pyramid of Giza into. It's fantastic in the way that it's formed unlike some caves (which tend to have openings that are similar in diameter to the interior entrance cave), so that you get this smaller opening which comes out into this huge space. And the way that the light floods in as you can see is truly amazing.
3. Fantastic Pit
You got that right! This is the deepest known pit in the continental United States at 586ft, and it looks awesome. You can find out more about the pit here
4. Sótano de Las Golondrinas (Cave of Swallows)
I know what you’re thinking (or probably not), hey isn’t that the Venezuelan cave from that episode of Planet Earth? Well no it isn’t, this cave is in Mexico. It’s called the cave of swallows because birds live in the caves walls. These birds are known to be White-collared Swifts, called vencejos in Spanish, and Green Parakeets, locally known as the periquillo quila. To free themselves from the cave, the birds fly in circles around the cave, gradually flying upwards until they are able to reach the surface. The birds do this each morning, and the exodus has become part of the tourist attraction.
It’s the deepest shaft cave in the world at around 300 metres deep, and it’s popular among base jumpers (apparently someone also navigated a hot air balloon into it, but that story seems a bit farfetched).
5. Fogbow formation
After extensive looking (nah just kidding, thanks NASA archives) I've found out that a fogbow is created by a reflection of sunlight by small water droplets in a similar way to how you see rainbows, except these are without colour (or without much colour generally), which is why they are also referred to as 'Whitebows'. The reason you see no colour is because the water droplets are so small that the quantum mechanical wavelength of light smears out the colours.
6. Wave Rock
I can’t imagine why it got the name, anywho this is a tourist attraction located in Austrailia (somewhere), and I think you’ll agree that it is very cool. Don’t try to surf on it though, it probably won’t work so well.
7. Triple sunrise illusion
Pretty cool eh, and yes there is a third sun if you look hard enough. I’m not sure how exactly it is created but this illusion can be seen by the unaided eye, and does happen in places around the world. This photo was taken in Gdansk Bay, Poland.
8. Anticrepuscular Rays
What you’re seeing here is basically god rays but with some great cloud and sun placement to give the effect shown in the photo.
9. Lunar Corona formation
‘Lunar coronae are much more familiar than those around the sun. They are seen when the clouds are thin enough that each single corona light ray reaching the eye is scattered or diffracted by only one droplet. Of course, the whole corona is made by a great many droplets individually scattering the moonlight.
Sometimes as clouds pass over the moon the corona shrinks and swells as different sized droplets mould it. Small droplets make the largest coronae with aureoles a few moon diameters across.’
I once saw a moon halo but this is, wow.
10. Moonbow
‘Just as there are rainbows during the day, there can be moonbows at night. It must be raining opposite the moon and the moon must be nearly full and it can't be any higher than 42 degrees in the sky. It also has to be dark. All those factors combined together make for this atmospheric phenomenon to be fairly rare.’ (thanks random website).
Bonus items
-This place:
I hate to say it but I know nothing about this area, so I’m putting it here.
-Also, another picture of a cloud formation (Morning Glory Clouds) from a previous list. I thought this was a really good photo of it so I’m putting it here as well
