» Home > In the News

What is a sprite

5 September 2019
Astronomy

At http://spaceweather.com (August 28th 2019) … following a period with a blank Sun, a couple of months, may be, but probably a question of a couple of weeks, we now have a major geomagnetic storm – issuing from two holes on the Sun's atmosphere. Hence, a double stream of solar wind struck in the first days of September. At the same site but on August 31st (2019) we have a gigantic jet over China …

                                                …                                                  … taken by Chinese astro photographer Chao Shen. A typhoon passed through the day before and just as storm clouds parted this gigantic sprite or jet of lightning could be seen in the gap between the cloud formations. Sprites on steroids is the catch all observation – a discharge from the top of the thunderstorm (in this instance a typhoon) rearing up towards the edge of space (and the ionosphere).

At the same site on September the 5th 2019 we have the return of the Steve …

    …. fabulous.

Gigantic jets are part of a growing ragbag of transient phenomena with an electro-magnetic origin. They include elves, trolls, sprites, and blue jets – and now we have gigantic jets of lightning.

Over at https://phys.org/news/2019-08-astronomers-asteroid.html …. astronomers catch a view of an asteroid in the act of changing colour – a space rock in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. It had two trails of dust in its wake, an active kind of behaviour more commonly associated with comets. The asteroid changed colour and the projected theory is that as it blew dust into space it revealed its fresh blue layers.

 

 

Skip to content