#red sprites

[without-ado]

Red Sprites, between stars and storms l Paul M Smith

[eskiworks]

Ever wonder how red sprites are made? Dragons, of course!

Posted using PostyBirb

[distantobserver0]

NASA artistic renderings of sprite lightning in Jupiter's upper atmosphere. 2020, JPL / Caltech. Sometimes I feel like if we could have an extra-dimensional understanding of our universe, we would know for certain beauty is inherent to its nature.

[wildwithlight]

[briery]

HD Sprite Lightning This phenomenon is a type of lightning known as red sprite, and rarely has it ever been photographed in this detail. Even though sprites have been recorded for over 30 years, their root cause remains unknown.

[spiced-wine-fic]

Red Sprite lightning. Oklahoma

[senatorex]

The Red Sprite and the Tree Credit & Copyright: Maxime Villaeys

[melanovia]

[nature-godsgardenofeden]

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Kartik Kota of Lake Wanaka, New Zealand, captured this amazing image on Sunday and wrote: “While trying to image the Milky Way arch over Lake Wanaka, I managed to capture some stunning lightning sprites or red sprites over an incoming thunderstorm. These sprites were right in front of the galactic core.”

[kestarren]

Sprites over storm, Levadia, Central Greece. Photo by Panagiotis Tsouras.

[bokskat]

two silly illustrations of my favorite things ever (red sprites)

[without-ado]

Red Sprites over Tatras, Slovakia l Ondrej Králik

[starclusterrr]

RED SPRITES

Red sprites -which occur in the mesosphere, high above thunderstorm clouds- are large scale electric discharges. These sprites present a unique range of visual shapes that flicker in the sky.

These sprites can be categorized into 3 distinct types: Jellyfish sprites, Column sprites and Carrot sprites.

[androgynousbirdtale]

The Red Sprite and the Tree

The sprite and tree could hardly be more different. To start, the red sprite is an unusual form of lightning, while the tree is a common plant. The sprite is far away -- high in Earth's atmosphere, while the tree is nearby -- only about a football field away. The sprite is fast -- electrons streaming up and down at near light's speed, while the tree is slow -- wood anchored to the ground. The sprite is bright -- lighting up the sky, while the tree is dim -- shining mostly by reflected light. The sprite was fleeting -- lasting only a small fraction of a second, while the tree is durable -- living now for many years. Both however, when captured together, appear oddly similar in this featured composite image captured early this month in France as a thunderstorm passed over mountains of the Atlantic Pyrenees.

Credit & Copyright: Maxime Villaeys

[xlntwtch2]

a very fine look at "red sprites" in the sky - here, often above greece - these "transient luminous events" were first photographed in 1989, though they were reported by pilots decades previously

[briery]

Red sprites over Bernese Oberland, Switzerland. (Photos by Stephane Vetter on Facebook)