Sometimes Discovering the Wonders of the Universe can be seen simply by Discovering our Planet Earth at night!
Check out this cool link from NASA International Space Station (ISS).
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130331.html

This is a time lapse video that shows the wonders of our Planet at night.

From the thin layer of the atmosphere (Exosphere) where the ISS orbits to the beautiful colors of the auroras located in the Thermosphere just below. This colorful display of lights can be seen at high elevations such as the Antarctic. Thunderstorms can be seen in the Troposphere, the layer closest to the ground!

 



Auroras from the Ionosphere at Night



Thunderstorms in the Troposphere at Night

 

Have you ever wondered how stars are formed in the Galaxy?
The answer can be found by looking into the night sky at  The Orion Nebula. It is an example of a stellar nursery where new stars are being born. Observations of the nebula have revealed approximately 700 stars in various stages of formation within the nebula.The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,344 ± 20 light years and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across. It has a mass of about 2000 times the mass of the Sun. Older texts frequently refer to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula.

The Orion Nebula is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely studied celestial features. The nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed protoplanetary disks, brown dwarfs, intense and turbulent motions of the gas, and the photo-ionizing effects of massive nearby stars in the nebula. There are also supersonic "bullets" of gas piercing the hydrogen clouds of the Orion Nebula. Each bullet is ten times the diameter of Pluto's orbit and tipped with iron atoms glowing bright blue. They were probably formed one thousand years ago from an unknown violent event.

Will more asteroids collide with Earth in the near future?

Rocks from space hit Earth every day. The larger the rock, though, the less often Earth is struck. Many kilograms of space dust travel to Earth daily. Larger bits appear initially as a bright meteor. Baseball-sized rocks and ice-balls streak through our atmosphere daily, most evaporating quickly to nothing. Significant threats do exist for rocks near 100 meters in diameter, which strike the Earth roughly every 1000 years. An object this size could cause significant tsunamis were it to strike an ocean, potentially devastating even distant shores. A collision with a massive asteroid, over 1 km across, is more rare, occurring typically millions of years apart, but could have truly global consequences. Many asteroids remain undiscovered.