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This is an "ELVE"--short for Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources. It's a rare species of sprite discovered in 1990 by cameras onboard the space shuttle. Binotto may have just taken the best ever picture of one from the ground. "The ELVE was generated by intense lightning in a storm near Ancona about 285 km south of me," says Binotto. One bolt was so strong, it generated an intense electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The red ring marks the spot where the EMP hit Earth's ionosphere. Normal lightning bolts carry 10 to 30 kilo-ampères of...

Surprise” might be an understatement to describe amateur astronomer Phil Williams’ reaction upon being told that the ghostly radio signal he had detected was, in fact, coming from a satellite that had failed and disappeared decades ago. Williams told Southgate Amateur Radio News that the signal he detected from his base in Cornwall seemed to cycle every four seconds, diminishing and returning to create an eerie repetitive sound. It would later be determined that the fluctuation was the result of the long-lost satellite barreling end over end through the void of space, causing variations in the light reaching the solar...

Living bacteria were found on the surface of the International Space Station (ISS), and they might have extraterrestrial origins, Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov said. The microorganisms will be studied further on Earth. Shkaplerov, an ISS expedition flight engineer who will take his third trip to the ISS in December as part of the Expedition 54 crew, said that scientists found living bacteria while they were taking samples from the surface of the station. Speaking to TASS, he said that the microorganisms might have come from outer space. ... However, traces of bacteria originating on Earth – from Madagascar – and...

Progress of waves through open sea sends vibrations that magnify with height up the entire atmospheric column. The signals of GPS satellites could be used to monitor tsunamis as they sweep across the ocean. In the most detailed study to date of the effect, scientists have shown that even though open ocean tsunami waves are only a few centimetres high, they are powerful enough to create atmospheric vibrations extending all the way to the ionosphere, 300 kilometres up in the atmosphere. The finding, the researchers hope, could hugely improve tsunami early-warning systems. In a study published online on 1 September...

Hole in Ionosphere Reveals Clues About North Korean Missile Launch

SOLAR SCIENCENASA: Ionosphere not where it should be disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only by Staff WritersWashington (UPI) Dec 17, 2008 The U.S. space agency says it has discovered the boundary between the Earth's upper atmosphere and space has moved to extraordinarily low altitudes. The finding was determined by National Aeronautics and Space Administration instruments aboard an Air Force satellite launched in April. The instruments, including ion and neutral sensors, make measurements of the variations in neutral and ion densities and drifts that can result in disruptions of navigation and communication signals. But the first discovery was that the...

CODAN, an Adelaide company that supplies remote-area long-distance communications to Afghanistan, may inadvertently have helped al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden escape a US missile strike. The Institute for War and Peace Reporting, a news agency that works closely with local people in war situations, reported in late 2001 that the al-Qaeda leader escaped from a house in Kabul three hours before it was hit. Quoting an al-Qaeda source, the report said terrorist spotters across Afghanistan had used the sophisticated Codan radio network to warn bin Laden of the approaching missile attack. "Bin Laden's foreign legion is equipped with a sophisticated...

<p>SAN JOSE, Calif.(AP) - The space shuttle Columbia broke up in a mysterious area of the upper atmosphere once so little understood and difficult to study that scientists dubbed it the "ignorosphere."</p> <p>On Friday, NASA said it has asked outside atmospheric scientists for their opinion on whether some sort of electrical discharge could have occurred as the shuttle screamed toward touchdown at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.</p>

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 October 31 Aurora in the Night Credit & Copyright: Juha Kinnunen Explanation: For much of the month of October, traveling shock waves from the Sun and solar wind gusts have buffeted planet Earth's magnetosphere. As a result, skywatchers at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere were treated to many displays of the aurora borealis or northern lights. For example, on the first of October this particularly ghostly apparition...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 October 15 Aurora's Ring Credit & Copyright: Trygve Lindersen Explanation: Gusting solar winds and blasts of charged particles from the Sun made the early days of October rewarding ones for those anticipating auroras. While out enjoying the stormy space weather from Toemmeraas, Norway, Trygve Lindersen recorded this picturesque apparition of the northern lights with a digital camera on October 6. From this perspective, the curtains of green...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 August 18 Earth's North Magnetic Pole Credit: NOAA Explanation: A magnetic compass does not point toward the true North Pole of the Earth. Rather, it more closely points toward the North Magnetic Pole of the Earth. The North Magnetic Pole is currently located in northern Canada. It wanders in an elliptical path each day, and moves, on the average, more than forty meters northward each day. Evidence...