A new analysis of the brushstrokes and colors in Vincent van Gogh's famous painting Starry Night reveals a striking similarity to "hidden turbulence" in Earth's atmosphere, suggesting the iconic artist had a surprisingly detailed understanding of natural processes.

Vincent van Gogh's painting "The Starry Night" depicts a swirling blue sky with yellow moon and stars. The sky is an explosion of colors and shapes, each star encapsulated in ripples of yellow, gleaming with light like reflections on water.

Scientists recently analyzed Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night to see how well its famous swirls matched up with known atmospheric physics. After analysis, they found that not only did the shapes match up with our current ideas of atmospheric turbulence,

Rémy-de-Provence, and, over the course of just a few weeks, he created one of the most iconic paintings of all time—The Starry Night. The masterpiece has always been interpreted as a reflection of van Gogh’s fractured psyche.