Shuttle Mission Zooms In On Electrifying Data ("Elfs")

Florida - Israeli scientists in charge of the space shuttle Columbia's desert dust-monitoring experiment said they have yet to find any dust storms but are zooming in on thunderstorms with electrifying results.

A pair of cameras aboard Columbia have captured video images of an "elf" - a luminous red, bagel-shaped electrical phenomenon that occurs above a thunderstorm in less than a millisecond.

Atmospheric scientist Yoav Yair from the Open University of Israel in Tel Aviv said these are the first scientific images of an elf ever recorded from space, and they were captured by chance.

Astronaut David Brown, who is working the graveyard shift on Columbia's round-the-clock science mission, aimed the Israeli cameras at an area above a South Pacific thunderstorm without realising he was photographing something special, Yair said.

'Bingo, we nailed one almost in the first data take' It was not until the images were transmitted to Yair and other scientists back on Earth that they realised what they had.

"It's causing really great excitement," Yair said from Nasa's control centre in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Bingo, we nailed one almost in the first data take. It was amazing."

Images of other electrical phenomena in the atmosphere were beamed down by the astronauts on Monday. The shuttle crew includes Ilan Ramon, who became the first Israeli in space after Columbia's launch last Thursday.

As it turns out, January is one of the worst times to study dust storms over the Mediterranean, the prime area of interest for the researchers. Columbia's 16-day mission has had a variety of launch dates over the past two years, but kept getting delayed, primarily because of shuttle problems.

January is one of the worst times to study dust storms Because of the lack of dust storms, Tel Aviv University scientists have focused on plumes of pollution coming out of Europe. Their goal is the same though - to see how the particles affect cloud formation and, consequently, climate.

As for the elves - a phenomenon discovered in 1994 - the scientists hope to learn more about the mechanics that connect thunderstorms to the ionosphere above. Such knowledge could ultimately have major applications for spacecraft, Yair said.

It got a little warm in Columbia's orbiting laboratory on Monday night, after a breakdown of both of its cooling and dehumidifying systems. A leak of condensate water flooded and shut down the first system, then a current spike took out the second.

Mission Control came up with a plan to direct cool air from the shuttle crew cabin back into the lab that was anchored in the cargo bay. Meanwhile, a variety of repairs are being considered by flight controllers. - Sapa-AP

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Space Shuttle Astronauts Videotape New Arc of Light
Updated 6:04 PM ET January 23, 2003

By Barbara Johnson

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Astronauts videotaping thunderstorms from the space shuttle Columbia captured what scientists said on Thursday was a never-before-seen red glowing arc of light paralleling the curve of the Earth.

"Two nights ago over Africa was an extraordinary image. We saw a huge horizontal line of air glow which has been brightened by lightning below it which extended to several hundred miles horizontally and we feel it may be something new," said Dr. Yoav Yair.

Yair, project coordinator for Israeli experiments on board the Columbia in its current mission, said analysis would attempt over the next few weeks to confirm scientists' initial impression that the glow is neither a sprite nor an elf, two other electrical phenomena associated with thunderstorms.

"It is raw data hot from the oven," Yair said. "It's a grainy and noisy image but for scientists it's a treasure trove. That's what we like."

Scientists were excited by the news that astronauts on Sunday captured the first-ever pictures of elves taken from space with a calibrated camera. The shuttle and its seven-member crew, which includes Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, are on a 16-day science mission that began on Jan. 16.

The study of sprites, elves and other luminosities associated with thunderstorms is part of what Yair described as a new discipline in the field of upper atmospheric physics. Sprites, which are red flashes shooting up from thunderstorms, were discovered only as recently as 1989, followed by elves, which are spreading red doughnut shapes, in 1994.

The latest luminosity, Yair said, was a narrow limb-like glow, hundreds of miles in length, red in color and probably made of nitrogen. Yair said the band was especially bright.

"It seems that the atmosphere still holds surprises for us," Yair said.

Yair said scientists studying these electrical discharges were looking to further basic science rather than develop specific products.

"But if you understand the global electrical circuit, and if you want to fly certain high flying aircraft or even satellites or if you want to move things through this layer of atmosphere then you have to know really well what's going on up there in terms of electricity," Yair said.

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