[houseplant]

the phenomenon of "red sprites", massive discharges of electricity upwards into the ionosphere that counter every single lightning strike, are only now being observed and photographed.

these energy ejections are SO powerful, they temporarily cause miniature aurora displays for a split second, by ionizing the same layer of the atmosphere where they appear. it's amazing to see photos of it.

[bguebert]

Here's an article with some pictures in case anyone else was curious about red sprites like I was.

https://earthsky.org/earth/definition-what-are-lightning-spr...

[mrguyorama]

The wikipedia page actually has some incredible images as well, including several from space that show their scale and position in the atmosphere (high up)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(lightning)

[dylan604]

that shot with them aligned with Milky Way is spectacular

[bguebert]

yeah, its pretty cool how most of these photos they were trying to take a picture of something else and the red sprites just happened to be in the right place because of a storm front moving in.

[garrettgarcia]

Sprites and similar phenomena have been reported for many years by pilots and others, but scientists didn't believe them until recently because it didn't fit their flawed models. It's similar how scientists didn't believe centuries of stories about rogue waves from mariners until one was recorded with a buoy in 1995.

Pecos Hank, the best storm chaser on Youtube, has recorded beautiful video of sprites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGPQ5kzJ9Tg