Sprite (lightning) - Wikipedia
Sprites or red sprites are large-scale electric discharges that occur in the mesosphere, high above thunderstorm clouds, or cumulonimbus, giving rise to a varied range of visual shapes flickering in the night sky. They are usually triggered by the discharges of positive lightning between an underlying thundercloud and the ground.
What are lightning sprites? How to photograph them - EarthSky
Jul 22, 2023 · Lightning sprites are electrical discharges high in Earth’s atmosphere. They’re associated with thunderstorms, but they’re not born in the same clouds that send us rain.
Red Sprites – Like Lightning But Different - Science Notes and …
Nov 12, 2023 · Red Sprites vs Lightning. Red sprites and lightning are both plasma-based electrical phenomena, but they differ significantly in several aspects: Altitude and Location: Lightning typically occurs within the troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere, where most weather phenomena take place. It occurs within or between clouds, or ...
Eerie, ultra-detailed photo of a lightning 'sprite' exposes one of ...
Sep 5, 2023 · An astronomer recently captured one of the most detailed-ever shots of a rare type of upward-shooting red lightning, known as a sprite, which briefly hovered in the air like a gigantic jellyfish...
APOD: 2023 October 2 – Sprite Lightning in High Definition
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.
Red lightning: The electrifying weather phenomenon explained - Space.com
Jul 13, 2022 · Red lightning, also known as a "sprite", is an intriguing weather phenomenon associated with certain very intense thunderstorms. While an ordinary lightning flash extends downward from the clouds...
Sprites, Camera, Action! - NASA Earth Observatory
Oct 5, 2024 · Sprites—an atmospheric phenomenon associated with powerful lightning events—occur in the mesosphere. This layer of the atmosphere is about 50-85 kilometers (31-53 miles) above Earth’s surface, far higher than the tops of …
Sprite (lightning) – Definition & Detailed Explanation - Sentinel …
Apr 28, 2024 · Sprites are a type of transient luminous event that occurs high above thunderstorms. They are often described as red, orange, or pink flashes of light that appear in the upper atmosphere. Sprites are closely related to lightning, but they are not the same thing.
Spritacular: NASA’s New Citizen Science Project to Capture Elusive ...
NASA’s newest citizen science project, Spritacular (pronounced sprite-tacular), leverages the power of crowdsourcing to advance the study of sprites and other Transient Luminous Events, or TLEs. TLEs include a range of electrical phenomena that occur above thunderstorms and produce brief flashes of light.
Spritacular - NASA Science
Spritacular. Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) are colorful, bright, faster-than-lightning flashes that thunderstorms generate above the clouds. TLEs can take a variety of fanciful shapes with equally fanciful names. The most frequently observed TLEs are called “sprites,” like the enigmatic and playful fairies of folklore.