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Credit & Copyright: Daniel åäerba
Explanation:
What are those red filaments in the sky?
They are a rarely seen form of
lightning
confirmed only about 35 years ago:
red sprites.
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 late last month from the
Jeseniky Mountains in northern
Moravia in the
Czech Republic.
The distance to the
red
sprites is about 200 kilometers.
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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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: 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
- APOD: 2023 April 17 Á ELVES Lightning over Italy
- Star Trails and Lightning over the Pyrenees
- Gigantic Jet Lightning from Puerto Rico
- Lightning and Orion Beyond Uluru