NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick has captured rare red sprites from the International Space Station (ISS). These subtle red lights are an elusive form of lightning that discharges into the upper atmosphere, at an altitude of about 80 km above storm regions in the mesosphere. This phenomenon was discovered only recently, but scientists still do not fully understand its nature.
These phenomena above thunderstorm clouds are known collectively as Transient Luminous Events (TLEs), which include a very rare form of sprites called ELVEs.
According to NASA, Dominic captured the red sprites on June 3 while flying over thunderstorms off the coast of South Africa. He took the photo during a time-lapse of a thunderstorm.
“I was very lucky a few weeks ago when I was taking a time-lapse of a thunderstorm off the coast of South Africa. In one of the frames, a red sprite was captured,” Dominic writes on the social network X (formerly Twitter). He also noted that he wants to learn more about these phenomena.
The astronaut shared his settings for shooting: A 50-millimeter lens with an aperture of f/1.2, a shutter speed of 1/5 second, and a light sensitivity of ISO 3200. He also asked the experts for tips on how to capture more sprites.
Space physicist Dr. Burku Kaur, who specializes in sprites, hopes that photographers will share their images for study. She notes that many great sprite images fail to get available to the scientific community. Dr. Kaur is working with Spiritacular, a citizen science project that aims to collect observations of sprites and other optical phenomena that occur over thunderstorms.
The red sprites are not only mesmerizing in their beauty, but also help us understand the complex natural processes that take place over our heads. Thanks to images such as those taken by Matthew Dominick, science is able to come closer to unlocking the secrets of our atmosphere.
Earlier, we reported on how scientists investigated the “green ghost”.
Based on NASA materials
