Sprite or Coke?
{A photograph} taken by NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick from the Worldwide Area Station reveals mysterious blue orbs far beneath the station and dotting the air off the coast of South Africa. Amongst them are tiny purple sparks of sunshine — finest seen within the full-resolution version — which solely add to the picture’s uncommon ambiance.
Because the area company explained in a recent blog post, the massive blue lights and dancing orbs are positively not indicators of an incoming alien invasion. As an alternative, the purple dots are the results of a particularly uncommon climate occasion known as “purple sprites,” whereas the a lot bigger blue orbs are lightning strikes — a wonderful present placed on by Mom Nature.
Spritacular
Whereas they nonetheless stay “much less understood,” in response to NASA, scientists consider purple sprites are associated to highly effective lightning occasions and often seem within the mesosphere, the third highest layer of the ambiance which is dwelling to “noctilucent” or “evening shining” clouds.
From area, transient luminous occasions (TLEs) like purple sprites often grow to be seen in timelapses taken with a large lens.
In 2022, NASA launched a “citizen science mission” known as “Spritacular” in an effort to crowdsource photographs of sprites.
TLEs had been first documented in 1989 by College of Minnesota researchers, who captured them by “sheer accident,” according to NASA, whereas they had been testing a low-light TV digicam for an upcoming rocket launch.
Photographed from the bottom, purple sprites appear like massive, jellyfish-like strands of red light.
Their purple shade is brought on by the presence of nitrogen within the ambiance reacting to {the electrical} expenses of lightning storms.
Some scientists have even suggested they might be associated to small ripples within the cloth of spacetime brought on by violent climate occasions.
In actual fact, they are not even unique to Earth’s ambiance. Scientists have observed them on Jupiter as nicely, the place they seem blue, not purple, as a result of ample hydrogen reacting with electrical expenses within the planet’s ambiance.
Extra on sprites: NASA Crowdsourcing Investigation of Otherworldly “Sprites”
