Off the southeast coast of Australia, the waters at night glow an eerie blue, a hue reminiscent of Broadway’s neon lights. Photographer Andy Hutchinson captured the phenomenon at Jervis Bay, caused by a natural occurrence called .

This happens when creatures in the water give off light. Many do it, squid and some fish, even single-celled organisms called dinoflagellates. In bioluminescence, a “light-producing chemical reaction occurs inside an organism,” according to the , a resource run by the University of California, Santa Barbara and overseen by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s Steven Haddock.

This differs from (shown in the photos of hard coral above, after the bioluminescent waters), which essentially involves light reflections. Fluorescent creatures like coral, shrimp and crabs, they “light up the black ocean with colors in the presence of light by absorbing and emitting light of different wavelengths,” we reported last year.

“The underwater world is dramatically different from ours in terms of light absorption and transmission properties,” photographer Daniel Stoupin explained to weather.com in 2013. “Water absorbs red parts of the spectrum very fast, immersing everything in blue and green.”

Hutchinson, a native of the U.K. who lives in New South Wales, Australia, now, photographed the in 2013. “It’s an inspiring place,” he wrote in a post for the Destination NSW website, about the landscape at his doorstep. “I love exploring it through my camera lens.”

In honor of this reminder of nature’s beauty, breathtaking 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 nine more of these wonders:

1. New Zealand Glowworms

, a photographer based in New Zealand, spent hours capturing the light from glowworms in limestone caves. Because the glowworms are found above water, Michael stood hours in cold water to freeze the worms’ luminosity.

“Being inside the caves is an interesting experience,” Michael said. “The moving water echoes through the cave system, which creates quite a loud ambient noise level.” The immersive experience in the dark meant that Michael needed to use extended periods of camera exposures to capture the worms, some taking up to an hour.

Glowworms in New Zealand actually are not true worms. Arachnocampa luminosa are the larvae of a fly called a fungus gnat that are commonly found in New Zealand. According to the , the blue-green glow they emit is the result of a chemical reaction in the organs in its abdomen. Though glowworms living outdoors start lighting up after dark, in caves, they glow at any time.

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,” photographertold weather.com previously, “deserves far more attention than it gets.”

3. 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.

4. 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 in 2014, “painting with light in the space within your camera’s frame.”

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.”

8. World’s Largest Solar PlantIn the middle of the Mojave Desert in California, the world’s largest solar thermal power plant was turned on in February 2014. 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 .

9. 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 .

MORE FROM WEATHER.COM: Our Top 50 Science and Environment Photos of 2014