NASA astronauts have captured photos of glowing objects shining in Earth’s upper atmosphere, and while they may look like an alien invasion threatening Earth, the blue spheres are the result of an optical phenomenon called red sprites.
of photograph Astronaut Matthew Dominick captured this image from the International Space Station (ISS) on June 3, capturing a line of glowing spheres occupying a small region of the atmosphere. The blue spheres were caused by a series of thunderstorms off the coast of South Africa, with lightning creating temporary luminescence, or bursts of energy, that appear above the storms.
In addition to the spaceship-like sphere, the photo also shows a faint, bright red flash, which NASA describes as a “poorly understood phenomenon” linked to a powerful lightning event. The red flash appears high above the clouds in the mesosphere, the third layer of the atmosphere, just above the stratosphere.
This photo gives us a glimpse of unusual lightning sprites, which are hard to capture from Earth. Although sprites are associated with thunderstorms, they don’t form in the rain-producing clouds lower in the atmosphere. Instead, sprites can appear as high as 50 miles (80 kilometers) into the sky. Earth Sky.
NASA astronaut Dominic has become known for sharing the beautiful images he has taken from space during his stay aboard the ISS. Dominic launched to the ISS on March 3 as the commander of the Crew 8 mission, and has been posting stunning views from the space station ever since. online.
© Matthew Dominique
Astronauts on the ISS typically use Nikon D6 and D5 SLR cameras to take these kinds of photos from the Cupola (observation module) or other windows on the ISS. NASA also captures a variety of data using cameras mounted on the space station’s exterior.
In the case of the unusual sprites, NASA has called on citizen scientists to send in photos of the atmospheric phenomenon. spirituala crowdsourced database that scientists can use for research, so if you happen to come across one of these bad boys, you know what to do.
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