50 Of The Most Fascinating, Stunning And Dangerous Natural Phenomena

Before diving into more intense natural phenomena and how to stay safe from them, we asked environmental scientist and sustainability consultant, Dr. Jennifer Brandon, and climate scientist and founder of New Climate Culture, Eloisa Lewis, what, in their opinion, is the most fascinating, unbelievable, or beautiful natural phenomenon.

For Lewis, it has to be any process where nature is healing itself, regenerating, or fortifying its own biome.

Meanwhile, for Dr. Brandon, the most beautiful natural phenomenon is the northern lights, whereas the most fascinating is the diel vertical migration.

"It's the largest migration on the planet, and it happens every single day," she told us. "It's where millions of fish and plankton are known to migrate from the bottom of the sea to the surface, or vice versa, right at dawn and dusk. The fact that so many species are that tuned in to the moon and sunlight is really amazing to me. And it affects so many things, like the circulation of carbon and nutrients throughout the entire ocean."

The scientific name for the aforementioned northern lights is Aurora borealis and it happens when electrically charged particles from the sun collide with Earth’s atmosphere at speeds up to 45 million mph or 72 million kph. Our planet’s magnetic field protects us from any harm from the solar particles, all while creating the multicolor spectacles known as the northern lights. 

The different colors we see are caused by atoms of oxygen and nitrogen that can be found in the air we breathe. When oxygen atoms release energy after colliding with solar particles, the sky turns red and green, while nitrogen atoms paint it purple and pink. 

Previously, this phenomenon was rarely spotted so it was considered a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence or a bucket list trip to the Arctic Circle. However, in the last couple of years, it has become a more common sight due to the sun being active and stormy. This roughly happens every 11 years, as the sun’s magnetic poles flip, and it transitions from lethargic to lively. On Earth, this would translate to the north and south poles switching places every decade.

The best time to see the Northern Lights with the naked eye, according to Northern Lights expert Dr. John Mason, MBE, is at twilight. “That’s because the brightness of the background sky will trigger the colour sensors in your eye so that when the Lights do appear, you can see the colour in them. When the sky gets really dark, you’ll find you can’t see the colour as well as you did earlier on, unless the display becomes brighter. It’s all about how our eyes perceive this in the darkness.”

Experts say that this solar activity isn’t slowing anytime soon so those who missed northern lights in the past have a chance of seeing them again. “We're in for a ride the rest of this year, all of next year and even into 2026 before things will start to work their way back down to solar minimum," said Shawn Dahl, a forecast coordinator, to CBS News.

Even though our world is full of beautiful and fascinating natural phenomena (as seen in the list and previously mentioned), some can also be dangerous. Natural disasters leave destruction in their way, and they're getting more frequent and intense due to climate change, says Dr. Brandon.

"If you take something like wildfires, as climate change changes the climate and makes the air drier and warmer, droughts worse, and the snowpack less, all of those things lead to hotter, drier conditions that will lead to hotter, drier, more intense wildfires," she explained.

"But climate change is also changing the seasonality of wildfires," she noted. "Here in Southern California, where I live, we also used to have a true wildfire season. It was not right now in January, yet there are nine active fires as of this morning. As we are having longer droughts and longer summer dry seasons, it's still dry here in January. And so the wildfire season really becomes yearlong and creates more frequent fires and more intense fires."