This giant red sprite resulted from a rarely massive positive lightning bolt deep inside a late fall storm system.
Not only are sprites like these beautiful and mysterious, each one captured could unlock a secret of our upper atmosphere.
To do this, the European Space Agency has equipment on the International space station that is monitoring for atmospheric changes above storms as it flies over. I actively try to share my captures with the ESA in hopes of one day getting a match with their sensors during their usually nine minute flyby.
This sprite was requested by and used in the ESA's article 'a sprite before Christmas' here: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2019/12/The_sprite_before_Christmas .
Video can be seen on here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_DCCRd0zps
1/1 NFT Half profits go to citizen science research.
