Rare photos of lightning in the mesosphere.
Overhead, in the atmosphere of the Earth, amazing phenomena occur, many of which people have recently discovered. Only at the end of the 19th century were noctilucent clouds discovered. And only 30 years ago, for the first time, it was possible to photograph the fantastically beautiful "high-altitude lightning", the habitat of which is the Earth's mesosphere. We invite you to look at sprites, elves and blue jets in our gallery.
Over the past 20 years, electrical discharges in the upper atmosphere and associated radiation in different ranges have been closely studied. For their research, special cameras are installed in the mountains or on orbiting satellites.
Most of these processes are observed in the mesosphere, the third layer of the atmosphere from the planet's surface. Depending on the latitude and time of year, the boundaries of this area change, but it starts at an altitude of about 50–65 kilometers and ends at an altitude of 85–100 kilometers above the earth's surface. At the same time, the height of the appearance of ordinary lightning usually does not exceed 16 kilometers.
Promotional video:
Historically, sprites are the first such phenomenon to be studied. They are electrical discharges that surge upward over thunderstorms or cumulonimbus clouds. The sprites look like flashes of orange-red aurora, which often have a main body, a “trunk,” and numerous branches.
Sprites over Northern Italy, August 2019:
Sprites:
There are separate eyewitness accounts describing such phenomena since at least the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, the existence of such discharges was assumed theoretically. However, only in July 1989 there was photographic confirmation of the phenomenon - they were received by scientists from the University of Minnesota. Since then, sprites have been regularly captured by both scientists and amateurs and even astronauts from the ISS.
Red sprite, photographed from the ISS, over central Myanmar (red pillars above a brightly lit spot):
Sprites are often mistakenly referred to as high-altitude lightning, but they do not heat the substance to temperatures typical of real lightning. Sprites are more like discharges in fluorescent lamps, they can be attributed to a phenomenon associated with cold plasma.
Angel Wing Sprites, January 2015, Bay of Biscay:
Sprites above storm clouds in the Mediterranean Sea near Barcelona, December 2014:
Sprites over the Balearic Sea:
Often, along with sprites, another phenomenon is observed, called "elves" (ELVES, Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources - "emission of light and very low-frequency disturbances due to a pulse from an electromagnetic source"). They appear as rapidly expanding disc-shaped regions of a reddish glow that can be hundreds of kilometers across.
Bright elf, slightly like a gravity wave, January 2015, Bay of Biscay:
Typically, elves appear at altitudes of about 100 kilometers above powerful storms and last only a few milliseconds. It is believed that the mechanism of their luminescence is associated with the emission of excited nitrogen molecules, which receive energy from electrons accelerated due to discharges in the underlying storm.
Red sprite above white lightning during a storm, northeast of Mexico City:
The connection between elves and sprites is not entirely clear. Moreover, sprites are sometimes preceded by a reddish halo for several milliseconds, which is often confused with elves. Halos are also disk-shaped, but their relationship with sprites is more reliable.
A giant blue jet over China, August 2016:
Another phenomenon is blue jets. They look like luminous streams emanating from the most active centers of thunderclouds. As they spread upwards, they gradually expand with an opening angle of about 15 degrees. Their glow gradually fades away at an altitude of about 40-50 kilometers.
Blue jet:
Blue jets are much brighter than sprites, have a different color, but are much less common. Previously, it was believed that they are not directly related to ordinary tropospheric lightning, but today scientists are leaning towards the existence of such a relationship.
Authors: Kirill Igamberdiev, Timur Keshelava
