More Amazing High Speed Images and Video of Sprite Lightning

By Nancy Atkinson - August 26, 2013 at 9:00 PM UTC | Planetary Science
sprite-1.jpg

When we first checked in with graduate student and astrophotographer Jason Ahrns

earlier this month

, he had the chance to be part of an observing campaign to try and photograph red sprite lightning from the air. Using a special airplane from the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Aircraft Facility in Boulder, Colorado, Jason was part of a team that used high-speed video cameras and digital still cameras to learn more about this mysterious lightning. They flew over the central part of the US, such as over Colorado, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.

Named for the mythological sprites, which were known for being elusive, this lightning flashes quickly at high altitudes of 65-75 km (40-45 miles), but often as high as 90 km (55 miles) into the atmosphere. They are difficult to see from the ground, thus this airborne observing campaign.

Here are more images and video (some at 10,000 frames per second!) taken by Jason and his team:

[caption id="attachment_104370" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

Red sprite lighting, taken on August 12, 2013 over Red Willow County, Nebraska, US as part of a sprite observing campaign. Credit and copyright: Jason Ahrns.[/caption]

Jason said

on his blog,

documenting the observing campaign, that "Most of what we saw were C-sprites, short for 'Column sprites' or 'Columnar sprites' - it just refers to their shape as tall, single columns."

Sprites appear as luminous reddish-orange flashes, and sometimes look like jellyfish with "legs" that reach down into the clouds. Besides the columnar shapes, they also can be shaped like carrots and crowns, but why they take different shapes is unknown. They are thought to be triggered by the discharges of positive lightning between an underlying thundercloud and the ground. They were discovered by accident in 1989 when a researcher studying stars was calibrating a camera pointed at the distant atmosphere where sprites occur.

[caption id="attachment_104371" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

Sprite lighting, taken on August 12, 2013 over Red Willow County, Nebraska in the US. Credit and copyright: Jason Ahrns. [/caption]

Above is an image, and below is the video of the same sprite slowed down by about 500 times:

See more information and images/videos on

Jason's Flickr page

and

his website.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com