by APOD Robot » Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:06 am
A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite
Explanation: There is something very unusual in this picture of the Earth -- can you find it? A fleeting phenomenon once thought to be only a legend has been newly caught if you know just where to look. The
above image was taken from the orbiting
International Space Station (ISS) in late April and shows familiar ISS solar panels on the far left and part of a robotic arm to the far right. The rarely imaged phenomenon is known as a
red sprite and it
can be seen, albeit faintly, just over the bright area on the image right. This bright area and the
red sprite are different types of lightning, with the white flash the more typical type. Although
sprites have been reported
anecdotally for as long as 300 years, they were first caught on film in 1989 -- by accident. Much remains unknown about
sprites including how they occur, their effect on the atmospheric
global electric circuit, and if they are somehow related to other
upper atmospheric lightning phenomena such as
blue jets or
terrestrial gamma flashes.
[/b]
[url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120829.html][img]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_120829.jpg[/img] [size=150]A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite[/size][/url]
[b] Explanation: [/b] There is something very unusual in this picture of the Earth -- can you find it? A fleeting phenomenon once thought to be only a legend has been newly caught if you know just where to look. The [url=http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/seeing-sprites.html]above image[/url] was taken from the orbiting [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110309.html]International Space Station[/url] (ISS) in late April and shows familiar ISS solar panels on the far left and part of a robotic arm to the far right. The rarely imaged phenomenon is known as a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_sprite]red sprite[/url] and it [url=http://www.universetoday.com/96984/on-the-hunt-for-high-speed-sprites/]can be seen[/url], albeit faintly, just over the bright area on the image right. This bright area and the [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_J-rN_rhS0]red sprite[/url] are different types of lightning, with the white flash the more typical type. Although [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990616.html]sprites[/url] have been reported [url=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ok7KAaeDjoI/T9a_eWgdZNI/AAAAAAAAVUE/YBJJI1_DW0Q/s1600/Cat-whispering-to-dog.jpg]anecdotally[/url] for as long as 300 years, they were first caught on film in 1989 -- by accident. Much remains unknown about [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap951111.html]sprites[/url] including how they occur, their effect on the atmospheric [url=http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/lis/lis_4/]global electric circuit[/url], and if they are somehow related to other [url=http://www.sky-fire.tv/index.cgi/spritesbluejetselves.html]upper atmospheric lightning[/url] phenomena such as [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper-atmospheric_lightning#Blue_jets]blue jets[/url] or [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_gamma-ray_flash]terrestrial gamma flashes[/url].
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