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Credit & Copyright: Nicolas Escurat
Explanation:
Sometimes lightning occurs out near space.
One such
lightning type is
red sprite lightning,
which has only been photographed and studied on
Earth
over the past 25 years.
The origins of all types of
lightning remain topics for research,
and scientists are still trying to figure out why
red sprite lightning occurs at all.
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.
Featured here is an
extraordinarily high-resolution image of a
group of red sprites.
This image is a single frame lasting only 1/25th of a second from a video taken above
Castelnaud Castle in
Dordogne,
France, about three weeks ago.
The sprites quickly vanished -- no sprites were visible even on the very next
video frame.
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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 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
- Red Sprite Lightning over the Czech Republic