Red Sprite Lightning over the Andes
Explanation:
What are those red filaments in the sky?
They are a rarely seen form of lightning confirmed only about 30 years ago:
red sprites.
Recent research has shown that following a powerful positive
cloud-to-ground lightning strike,
red sprites may start as 100-meter balls of
ionized
air that shoot down from about
80-km high at 10 percent the
speed of light.
They are
quickly followed
by a group of upward streaking ionized balls.
The
featured image
was taken earlier this year from
Las Campanas observatory in
Chile over the
Andes Mountains in
Argentina.
Red sprites take only a
fraction of a second to occur and are best seen when
powerful thunderstorms are visible from the side.
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Robert Nemiroff
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Jerry Bonnell
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NASA Official: Jay Norris.
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GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
