Noctilucent clouds are not fully understood and are a recently discovered meteorological phenomenon . No confirmed record of their observation exists before 1885 , although they may have been observed a few decades earlier by Thomas Romney Robinson in Armagh . Doubts now surround Robinson 's out-of-season records , following observations , from several points around high northern latitudes , of NLC-like phenomena following the Chelyabinsk superbolide entry in February 2013 ( outside the NLC season ) that were in fact stratospheric dust reflections visible after sunset
Chelyabinsk
Chelyabinsk meteor
Noctilucent cloud