Hanukkah began Tuesday, Dec. 16, and runs for eight nights. In honor of the Festival of Lights, we decided to look at eight beautiful light shows from the natural world (OK, the solar plant technically isn’t “natural,” but its aim is to generate electricity from the sun, so we think it counts). Here’s a little bit about each of these natural wonders:

1. The Aurora BorealisWhen the yellows, purples, greens and blues of the Northern Lights splash across the sky, they convey an almost alternate universe, a dream state full of rainbow brights. What’s really happening, however, is electric particles colliding, according to the . Colors change due to the variety of gas particles connecting; oxygen produces the green color, nitrogen the blue.

2. Glowing Underwater CreaturesSome marine animals appear to glow from a chemical reaction within. That’s called bioluminescence. The creatures above, however, are fluorescent. In other words, they absorb and emit light at different wavelengths, appearing like neon lights in an otherwise dark, deep ocean. “The glowing world,” photographer told weather.com previously, “deserves far more attention than it gets.”

3. Fireflies and Star Trails does what’s called light painting photography, a skill he’s been honing since 2008. To create these images, which are composites, he uses a very long exposure, sometimes up to a half hour, then stacks frames — hundreds at a time, often — to get his desired effect. “It’s almost like composing a regular painting except you’re working in the dark,” he told weather.com earlier this year, “painting with light in the space within your camera’s frame.”

4. Lights from the ISSThe lucky few who get to spend time on the International Space Station have a view of Earth unlike that which most of us will ever get to experience. Luckily for us, the astronauts aboard the ISS enjoy taking pictures — and they’re keen to show us just how beautiful our planet is from above. Urban landscapes are particularly striking, “,” as NASA put it in its description of one such image.

5. LightningThere’s much we can say about lightning. We’re The Weather Channel, after all. Here, we offer some . But we thought it would also be fun to offer up three , courtesy of NOAA. One: To power a 100-watt incandescent light bulb for about 90 days requires the same amount of electricity a typical lightning flash carries. Two: Lightning may strike a single spot, but it can spread once it hits the ground — up to 60 feet! Three: Lightning can, in fact, strike twice.

6. Solar FlaresWhat is a solar flare? According to NASA, it’s “an coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots.” There are five classes: From largest to smallest, the classes go X, M, C, B, A. Even NASA gets excited about , writing, “The biggest X-class flares are by far the largest explosions in the solar system and are awesome to watch.”

7. World’s Largest Solar PlantIn the middle of the Mojave Desert in California, the world’s largest solar thermal power plant was turned on this past February. More than 300,000 mirrors create what’s been called a sea of solar panels, generating enough power to light up 140,000 homes. But something happened that no one expected (or if they did, didn’t discuss): The plant, called Ivanpah, started — literally scorching them — in extremely high numbers. And as of November, the plant .

8. The SunMuch like with lightning, we opted to offer up some here, courtesy of NASA. One: The sun is hot. You knew that, but did you know how hot? 27 million degrees Fahrenheit, to be exact. Two: Eight planets, including Earth, orbit the sun, but so do dwarf planets, asteroids, comets and other icy bodies. Three: The sun is huge. NASA describes it this way: If the sun is the size of the front door to a house, Earth reaches as high as a nickel would. Here are .

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