                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2023 October 2
    A normal starry sky is punctuated by by several very unusually shaped
     red objects, known as sprites. These sprites are shown in very high
                 details including several very well defined

                     Sprite Lightning in High Definition
                  Image Credit & Copyright: Nicolas Escurat

   Explanation: Sometimes lightning occurs out near space. One such
   lightning type is red sprite lightning, which has only been
   photographed and studied on Earth over the past 25 years. The origins
   of all types of lightning remain topics for research, and scientists
   are still trying to figure out why red sprite lightning occurs at all.
   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. Featured here is an extraordinarily high-resolution image of a
   group of red sprites. This image is a single frame lasting only 1/25th
   of a second from a video taken above Castelnaud Castle in Dordogne,
   France, about three weeks ago. The sprites quickly vanished -- no
   sprites were visible even on the very next video frame.

                     Tomorrow's picture: eye in the sky
     __________________________________________________________________

       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
                           NASA Science Activation
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

