SPRITES
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NASA
Sprites Over Château de Beynac
A flash of lightning, and then—something else. High above a storm, a crimson figure blinks in and out of existence. If you see it, you are a lucky witness of a sprite, one of the least-understood electrical phenomena in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Sprites occur at some 50 miles (80 kilometers) altitude, high above thunderstorms. They appear moments after a lightning…
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NASA
Studying Storms from Space Station
Science in Space June 2025 Scientists use instruments on the International Space Station to study phenomena in Earth’s ionosphere or upper atmosphere including thunderstorms, lightning, and transient luminous events (TLEs). TLEs take many forms, including blue jets, discharges that grow upward into the stratosphere from cloud tops, and colorful bursts of energy above storms called Stratospheric/Mesospheric Perturbations Resulting from Intense…
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