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Credit & Copyright: Valter Binotto
Explanation:
What's that red ring in the sky?
Lightning.
The most commonly seen type of
lightning
involves flashes of
bright white light between clouds.
Over the past 50 years, though, other
types of upper-atmospheric lightning have been confirmed, including
red sprites and
blue jets.
Less well known and harder to photograph is a different type of
upper atmospheric lightning known as ELVES.
ELVES
are thought to be created when an
electromagnetic pulse
shoots upward from charged clouds and impacts the
ionosphere, causing
nitrogen molecules to glow.
The
red
ELVES ring
pictured
had a radius of about 350 km and was captured in late March about 100 kilometers
above
Ancona,
Italy.
Years of experience and ultra-fast photography were used to capture this
ELVES
--
which lasted
only
about 0.001 second.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: lightning
Publications with words: lightning
See also:
- APOD: 2024 August 13 Á Giant Jet from the International Space Station
- APOD: 2024 June 18 Á Gigantic Jets over Himalayan Mountains
- APOD: 2023 October 2 Á Sprite Lightning in High Definition
- APOD: 2023 September 18 Á The Red Sprite and the Tree
- APOD: 2023 June 25 Á Lightning on Jupiter
- Star Trails and Lightning over the Pyrenees
- Red Sprite Lightning over the Czech Republic