Mysterious Sprite Photographed by ISS Astronaut: Big Pic

linky

I thought this was very neat. Looks like the ISS caught a Red Sprite over a lightning storm over myanmar.
It almost looks like some sort of portal.
Very neat.

The image above, captured by Expedition 31 astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), shows an enigmatic atmospheric phenomenon known as a red sprite hovering just above a bright flash of lightning in a thunderstorm over Myanmar.

First documented in a photo in 1989, red sprites are very brief flashes of optical activity that are associated with powerful lightning discharges in storms -- although the exact mechanisms that create them aren't yet known.

Nature is always surprising me on how beautiful it can be. Thank you for sharing w phenomenon I never knew about.

reply to post by grey580


HAARP!

Lol, nah im kidding. It is unusually large for a sprite though.

It is more than likely that the effect seen is related to the environment above the lightning and peculiar to that particular environment, at the time it occurs. It is more an effect of lightning rather than lightning itself in the thinner atmosphere, kind of cause and effect, since all the sprites are not the same in colour. maybe it's nature's spectrograph. There is a caveat though, since the observed sprites jellyfish tendrils appearance indicates that the effect is downwards to the earth regardless of colour, mostly blue and red, but that too could be just an effect.

That is an awesome picture. Nature just continues to amaze me. Just the wild and crazy stuff that occurs is just mind boggling.

Ive never read about that before, very interesting.

Thanks for the pic.