Insight Into: Observing Red Sprites

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with the NASA Earth Observatory.

All images, illustrations, and videos courtesy of NASA

except:

·       Daytime photo of lightning in Arizona courtesy of Wikipedia user ed ouimette

·       Photo of oil wells and flare in North Dakota courtesy of Tim Evanson

·       Photo of fracking equipment in North Dakota courtesy of Joshua Doubek

·       Photo of old and new San Francisco – Oakland Bay bridges courtesy of Frank Schulenburg

·       Sea creature illustration copyright The National Library of Israel, Shapell Family Digitization Project _and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Geography – Historic Cities Research Project

 

Music courtesy of Associated Production Music

Written by Tracy Vogel

Designed by Marc Lussier

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A lightning bolt in the desert. Text, We can usually see better in the daylight.

 

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[CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC]

 

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But not always.

 

Lightning is one phenomenon best observed at night.

 

Astronauts aboard the space station have a unique view of lightning strikes.

 

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[EXCITING MUSIC]

 

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Astronauts of captured images of the rarely witnessed lightning phenomena called "red sprites."

 

On the Earth's horizon, a red shape over a purplish-white shape on the ground.

 

The jellyfish-like red sprites are cold electric discharges, similar to the emissions of a fluorescent light tube, that seem to occur during large thunderstorms.

 

The sprites tendrils reach as far as 60 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth's surface.

 

Earth from a space station. Text, Red sprites are difficult to observe, because they last just milliseconds and appear above thunderstorm clouds, which usually block our view from the ground.

 

Earth orbit provides a good perch from which to study these elusive phenomena.