When you purchase through links on our site , we may earn an affiliate commissioning . Here ’s how it act .
An astronomer of late capture one of the most detail - ever shot of a rare type of upwards - sprout blood-red lightning , known as a sprite , which briefly hovered in the air travel like a mammoth jellyfish during a electrical storm over central Europe .
Stanislav Kaniansky , an uranologist at the Banská Bystrica Observatory in Slovakia , snap the sprite near his home in Látky , Slovakia , on Aug. 14,Spaceweather.comreported . The luminous , zig - zagging structure measure more than 31 miles ( 50 kilometers ) across and last for just a few fractions of a 2d before disappearing .
The upward-shooting red lightning, known as a sprite, appeared during a thunderstorm in Slovakia on Aug. 14.
Sprites , or stratospheric disturbance resulting from intense electric storm electrification , are make when electrical discharges from lightning shoot upwards , often in accession to their normal downward flight . These waiver produce long strands ofplasma , or ionized gas , in the ionosphere — the ionized part of Earth ’s atmosphere that starts at around 50 miles ( 80 km ) above Earth ’s surface , concord toNASA .
Sprites are very intemperate to photograph because they are fleeting and often obscure by thick cloud . But Kaniansky ’s orientation enable him to get a great looking at the phenomenon . " The thunderstorm was about 320 km [ 200 miles ] away , giving me a just view of the atmosphere just above the cloud tops , " he told Spaceweather.com .
The image is " one of the most elaborated picture ever of a fay , " grant to Spaceweather.com .
Additional sprites were also spotted during the same thunderstorm.
Related : thrilling meter - backsliding image appropriate 100 lightning bolt torching the sky over Turkey
Sprites wereofficially discovered in the other 1990swhenNASA ’s space shuttles captured the first clear persona of the phenomenon . But the red lightning has evidence hard to study because it is so curtly - lived .
scientist now believe that sprites may bepartly triggered by disturbance in atmospherical plasmacaused by tiny target likemeteors , but the exact mechanism behind the phenomenon is still undecipherable .
On Aug. 20 , fay were alsophotographed above lightning smash from Hurricane Franklinas it passed Puerto Rico .
faerie are part of a group of phenomenon roll in the hay as fugacious luminous events ( TLE ) that are all tied to lightning . Other TLEs let in blue jets , which are more powerful and energetic variation of sprites , and elves , or emission of light and very low - frequency perturbations due to electromagnetic heartbeat sources , which are momentary anchor ring of reddened light make when electromagnetic pulses ( EMPs ) from lightning impinge on the ionosphere .
— muscular laser blast used to check lightning for the first fourth dimension
— Never - before - catch ' watch crystal - like matter ' hidden in a clod of fossilized lightning is believably a brand young mineral
— Lightning bolt break platter for longest ever recorded
Other TLEs are also very rarified but are becoming easier to snap thanks to progress in engineering . In 2019 , instruments aboard theInternational Space Stationcapturedimages of a gigantic blue jet from space . The phenomenon was also attend alongside a 2018 lightning dash in Oklahoma , which issuspected of being the most powerful of its kind ever recorded . And in April this yr , a lensman in Italy captured an eerie photo of a hoop - mold elve , whichappeared to hang above a town like a UFO .
