![Sprite seen from space](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Sprite_seen_from_space.jpg)
Sprites or red sprites are large-scale
electric discharges that occur high above
thunderstorm
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are some ...
clouds, or
cumulonimbus, giving rise to a varied range of visual shapes flickering in the night sky. They are usually triggered by the discharges of
positive lightning between an underlying
thundercloud and the ground.
Sprites appear as luminous red-orange flashes. They often occur in clusters above the
troposphere
The troposphere is the first and lowest layer of the atmosphere of the Earth, and contains 75% of the total mass of the planetary atmosphere, 99% of the total mass of water vapour and aerosols, and is where most weather phenomena occur. Fro ...
at an altitude range of . Sporadic visual reports of sprites go back at least to 1886
but they were first photographed on July 4, 1989,
by scientists from the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...
and have subsequently been captured in video recordings many thousands of times.
Sprites are sometimes inaccurately called
upper-atmospheric lightning
Upper-atmospheric lightning and ionospheric lightning are terms sometimes used by researchers to refer to a family of short-lived electrical-breakdown phenomena that occur well above the altitudes of normal lightning and storm clouds. Upper-atmo ...
. However, sprites are cold
plasma phenomena that lack the hot channel temperatures of
tropospheric
The troposphere is the first and lowest layer of the atmosphere of the Earth, and contains 75% of the total mass of the planetary atmosphere, 99% of the total mass of water vapour and aerosols, and is where most weather phenomena occur. From t ...
lightning, so they are more akin to
fluorescent tube
A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave ultraviolet l ...
discharges than to lightning discharges. Sprites are associated with various other upper-atmospheric
optical phenomena
Optical phenomena are any observable events that result from the interaction of light and matter.
All optical phenomena coincide with quantum phenomena. Common optical phenomena are often due to the interaction of light from the sun or moon with ...
including
blue jets and
ELVES
An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He distinguishes ...
.
History
The earliest known report of transient optical phenomena above thunderclouds is from
Johann Georg Estor
Johann Georg Estor (6 June 1699 – 25 October 1773), was a German theorist of public law, historian and book collector. To his opinion the Roman Law is strange to the original German law-culture and must be considered as a foreign body.
Life
...
in 1730. Another early report is by Toynbee and Mackenzie in 1886.
Nobel laureate
C. T. R. Wilson
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, (14 February 1869 – 15 November 1959) was a Scottish physicist and meteorologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the cloud chamber.
Education and early life
Wilson was born in the parish ...
had suggested in 1925, on theoretical grounds, that electrical breakdown could occur in the upper atmosphere, and in 1956 he witnessed what possibly could have been a sprite. They were first documented photographically on July 6, 1989, when scientists from the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...
, using a low-light video camera, accidentally captured the first image of what would subsequently become known as a sprite.
Several years after their discovery they were named
sprites (air spirits) after their elusive nature.
Since the 1989 video capture, sprites have been imaged from the ground, from aircraft and from space, and have become the subject of intensive investigations. A featured high speed video that was captured by
Thomas Ashcraft
Thomas Ashcraft (born 1951, Springfield, Illinois) is an American astronomer, naturalist, scientific instrument-maker, and artist. He is known for his observations of transient luminous events (Sprite (lightning), lightning sprites), meteoric fire ...
, Jacob L Harley, Matthew G McHarg, and Hans Nielsen in 2019 at about 100,000 frames per second is fast enough to provide better detailing of how sprites develop. However, according to NASA's APOD blog, despite being recorded in photographs and videos for the more than 30 years, the "root cause" of sprite lightning remains unknown, "apart from a general association with positive cloud-to-ground lightning." NASA also notes that not all storms exhibit sprite lightning.
In 2016, sprites were observed during
Hurricane Matthew's passage through the Caribbean.
The role of sprites in the tropical cyclones is presently unknown.
Characteristics
![Red sprite](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Red_sprite.jpg)
Sprites have been observed over
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
,
[Kathy Berry (1994)]
Spectacular Color Flashes Recorded Above Electrical Storms.
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
. Retrieved on 2009-02-18. Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
,
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
,
[Don Savage and Kathy Berry (1995)]
Sprites Confirmed Over Storms Outside U.S. For First Time.
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
. Retrieved on 2009-02-18. Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
,
Central Africa
Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, ...
(
Zaire
Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...
),
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, the
Sea of Japan
The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it h ...
and
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
and are believed to occur during most large thunderstorm systems.
Rodger (1999) categorized three types of sprites based on their visual appearance.
* Jellyfish sprite – very large, up to .
* Column sprite (C-sprite) – large scale electrical discharges above the earth that are still not totally understood.
* Carrot sprite – a column sprite with long tendrils.
Sprites are colored reddish-orange
in their upper regions, with bluish hanging
tendril
In botany, a tendril is a specialized stem, leaf or petiole with a threadlike shape used by climbing plants for support and attachment, as well as cellular invasion by parasitic plants such as ''Cuscuta''. There are many plants that have tendr ...
s below, and can be preceded by a reddish halo. They last longer than normal lower stratospheric discharges, which last typically a few milliseconds, and are usually triggered by the discharges of positive lightning between the thundercloud and the ground,
although sprites generated by negative ground flashes have also been observed.
They often occur in clusters of two or more, and typically span the altitude range , with what appear to be tendrils hanging below, and branches reaching above.
Optical imaging using a 10,000 frame-per-second
high speed camera
A high-speed camera is a device capable of capturing moving images with exposures of less than 1/1,000 second or frame rates in excess of 250 fps. It is used for recording fast-moving objects as photographic images onto a storage medium. After r ...
showed that sprites are actually clusters of small, decameter-sized
/sup>() balls of ionization that are launched at an altitude of about and then move downward at speeds of up to ten percent the speed of light
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit ...
, followed a few milliseconds later by a separate set of upward moving balls of ionization. Sprites may be horizontally displaced by up to from the location of the underlying lightning strike, with a time delay following the lightning that is typically a few milliseconds, but on rare occasions may be up to 100 milliseconds.
In order to film sprites from Earth, special conditions must be present: of clear view to a powerful thunderstorm with positive lightning between cloud and ground, red-sensitive recording equipment, and a black unlit sky.[Grønne, Jesper]
"Første danske 'red sprites' fanget fra Silkeborg"
''Danish Meteorological Institute
The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI; da, Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut) is the official Danish meteorological institute, administrated by the Ministry of Energy, Utilities and Climate. The institute makes weather forecasts and observati ...
'', 20 August 2012. Retrieved: 20 August 2012.
Sprite halo
Sprites are sometimes preceded, by about 1 millisecond, by a sprite ''halo
Halo, halos or haloes usually refer to:
* Halo (optical phenomenon)
* Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head
HALO, halo, halos or haloes may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Video games
* ''Halo'' (franch ...
'', a pancake-shaped region of weak, transient optical
Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...
emissions
Emission may refer to:
Chemical products
* Emission of air pollutants, notably:
**Flue gas, gas exiting to the atmosphere via a flue
** Exhaust gas, flue gas generated by fuel combustion
** Emission of greenhouse gases, which absorb and emit rad ...
approximately across and thick. The halo is centered at about altitude above the initiating lightning strike. These halos are thought to be produced by the same physical process that produces sprites, but for which the ionization is too weak to cross the threshold required for streamer formation. They are sometimes mistaken for ELVES
An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He distinguishes "ligh ...
, due to their visual similarity and short duration.[Rina Miyasato, Hiroshi Fukunishi, Yukihiro Takahashi, Michael J. Taylor, Hans. C. Stenbaek-Nielsen (2002)]
Characteristics of Lightning-induced Sprite Halos and Their Generation Mechanisms.
Academic Society Home Village. Retrieved on 2009-02-18. [Christopher Barrington Leigh (2000)]
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
. Retrieved on 2008-02-18.[Barrington-Leigh, C. P., U. S. Inan, and M. Stanley]
"Identification of Sprites and Elves with Intensified Video and Broadband Array Photometry", J. Geophys. Res. 106, No. 2, February, 2001.
/ref>
Research carried out at Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
in 2000 indicates that, unlike sprites with bright vertical columnar structure, occurrence of sprite halos is not unusual in association with normal (negative) lightning discharges.
Research in 2004 by scientists from Tohoku University
, or is a Japanese national university located in Sendai, Miyagi in the Tōhoku Region, Japan. It is informally referred to as . Established in 1907, it was the third Imperial University in Japan and among the first three Designated National ...
found that very low frequency
Very low frequency or VLF is the ITU designation for radio frequencies (RF) in the range of 3–30 kHz, corresponding to wavelengths from 100 to 10 km, respectively. The band is also known as the myriameter band or myriameter wave a ...
emissions occur at the same time as the sprite, indicating that a discharge within the cloud may generate the sprites.
Related aircraft damage
Sprites have been blamed for otherwise unexplained accidents involving high altitude vehicular operations above thunderstorms. One example of this is the malfunction of a NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
stratospheric balloon launched on June 6, 1989, from Palestine, Texas
Palestine ( ) is a city in and the seat of Anderson County in the U.S. state of Texas. It was named for Palestine, Illinois, by preacher Daniel Parker, who had migrated from that town.
The city had a 2020 U.S. census population of 18,544, mak ...
. The balloon suffered an uncommanded payload release while flying at over a thunderstorm near Graham, Texas
Graham is a city in north-central Texas. It is the county seat and largest city of Young County.
History
The site was first settled in 1871 by brothers Gustavus A. and Edwin S. Graham, primary shareholders in the Texas Emigration and Land Company ...
. Months after the accident, an investigation concluded that a "bolt of lightning" traveling upward from the clouds provoked the incident. The attribution of the accident to a sprite was made retroactively, since this term was not coined until late 1993.
See also
* Upper-atmospheric lightning
Upper-atmospheric lightning and ionospheric lightning are terms sometimes used by researchers to refer to a family of short-lived electrical-breakdown phenomena that occur well above the altitudes of normal lightning and storm clouds. Upper-atmo ...
(includes Blue Jets)
* Aurora (astronomy)
An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of br ...
* Catatumbo lightning
Catatumbo lightning ( es, Relámpago del Catatumbo) is an atmospheric phenomenon that occurs over the mouth of the Catatumbo River where it empties into Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. Catatumbo means "House of Thunder" in the language of the Bari p ...
* Cosmic ray visual phenomena
References
External links
"Red Sprites & Blue Jets"
– a digital capture of the VHS video distributed in 1994 by the University of Alaska Fairbanks
The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF or Alaska) is a public land-grant research university in College, Alaska, a suburb of Fairbanks. It is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska system. UAF was established in 1917 and opened for cla ...
that popularized the terms
* – webpage by University of Alaska Fairbanks
The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF or Alaska) is a public land-grant research university in College, Alaska, a suburb of Fairbanks. It is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska system. UAF was established in 1917 and opened for cla ...
Ground and Balloon-Borne Observations of Sprites and Jets
Space Physics Group, University of Otago
Sprites, jets and TLE pictures and articles
Sprites in Europe: European contributors blog
*
*
* Photography websit
Petapixel
posted a link to a very rare and very clear photograph of a sprite taken by photographer Mike Hollingshead. Article a
Photographer Captures Rare Photograph of a Sprite with an Aurora
At the Edge of Space
– a ''NOVA
A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...
'' program that examines the phenomenon of Sprites
Red Sprites Over Adriatic Sea
Seen from the Czech Republic (14 January 2019)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sprite (Lightning)
Electrical phenomena
Lightning
Space plasmas
Articles containing video clips