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(International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/A. Smith) ============================================================ In a stormy Hawaiian sky in July 2017, streaks of red and blue lightning seemed to meet above a bed of white light. Cameras on the Gemini North telescope at the Gemini Observatory in Mauna Kea snapped a stunning picture of the multi-colored light show. The National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab) released the photo on Wednesday as its "image of the week". The lightning in the image "appears so otherworldly that it looks like it must be a special effect," NOIRLab said. It also published a zoomable version. These colorful lightning phenomena are aptly...

SPRITES AND TROLLS AT THE EDGE OF SPACE: We all know what comes out of the bottom of thunderclouds: lightning. But rarely do we see what comes out of the top. On August 10th, astronauts onboard the International Space Station were perfectly positioned to observe red sprites dancing atop a cluster of storms in Mexico. They snapped this incredible photo: This shows just how high sprites can go. The photo shows their red forms reaching all the way from the thunderstorm below to a layer of green airglow some 100 km above Earth's surface. This means sprites touch the edge...

Mysterious UFO sightings may go hand in hand with a puzzling natural phenomenon known as sprites — flashes high in the atmosphere triggered by thunderstorms. The dancing lights have appeared above most thunderstorms throughout history, but researchers did not start studying them until one accidentally recorded a sighting on camera in 1989. "Lightning from the thunderstorm excites the electric field above, producing a flash of light called a sprite," said Colin Price, a geophysicist at Tel Aviv University in Israel. "We now understand that only a specific type of lightning is the trigger that initiates sprites aloft." Researchers have detected...

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- A natural phenomenon called "sprites" may offer an explanation for UFO sightings, a Tel Aviv University professor said. Sprites, a flash of light high in the atmosphere 35 to 80 miles from the ground and up to 10 times higher than a regular lightning bolt, last for a fraction of second and only occur during thunderstorms, according to Professor Colin Price, head of the Geophysics and Planetary Sciences Department at the university. The phenomenon has existed for millions of years, but was first discovered and documented in 1989. “Sprites, which only occur in conjunction with thunderstorms, never...

Atmospheric 'sprites' captured in explosive detail 18:28 16 February 2006 NewScientist.com news service Kimm Groshong Sprites are rare and fleeting events, lasting between just 10 and 100 milliseconds (Image: Steven A Cummer, Duke University) Mysterious flashes of light called “sprites", that occur above thunderclouds during powerful storms, have been captured on film in unprecedented detail by researchers using an ultra-high-speed camera. The best images yet of the flashes – which resemble a giant undulating jellyfish with its tentacles falling from a halo of light – have allowed the team to pick apart their structure and mechanics. Sprites are fleeting events,...

<p>NASA officials said Friday they have asked experts in upper-atmosphere electric phenomena whether it is possible for such effects to occur at the altitude and weather conditions that the shuttle was flying through before it disintegrated.</p> <p>But they said that so far they have found nothing in their investigation to indicate that the shuttle encountered such phenomena on re-entry. "There is nothing in the data stream . . . that would cause any concern on our part," said Ron Dittemore, NASA's shuttle program manager.</p>

MATTHEW FORDAHL, Associated Press WriterFriday, February 7, 2003 ©2003 Associated Press URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/02/07/state1114EST0040.DTL (02-07) 08:14 PST SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Federal scientists are investigating whether electricity or some other little-understood phenomena in the upper atmosphere might have doomed the space shuttle Columbia. Investigators also are reviewing data recorded by a network of instruments that might have detected a faint thunderclap at the same time a purplish bolt of lightning may have struck the shuttle high above Earth, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Researchers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center raised concerns in a report last year that electromagnetic phenomena or ice...

<p>Federal scientists are looking for evidence that a bolt of electricity in the upper atmosphere might have doomed the space shuttle Columbia as it streaked over California, The Chronicle has learned.</p> <p>Investigators are combing records from a network of ultra-sensitive instruments that might have detected a faint thunderclap in the upper atmosphere at the same time a photograph taken by a San Francisco astronomer appears to show a purplish bolt of lightning striking the shuttle.</p>

www.holoscience.com.au©Copyright HOLOSCIENCE 2000 &nbsp; HOLOSCIENCE The Science of the New Millenium NEWS ITEM 29 January 2002 &nbsp; The Balloon goes up over lightning! was sent aloft to ride far above the great storms of the mid-west USA. Researchers had sent the balloon, like a Dark Rider out of Tolkien, riding into the moonless night, seeking sprites, gnomes and the ring of the elves. &lt;&lt; Gnomes, sprites and elves stretch into space above powerful thunderstorms. Their fanciful names may reflect the fact that airline pilots reported them but for many years no one would believe them. C.T.R. Wilson 1927 Surprisingly, ...

<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>

<p>A San Francisco amateur astronomer who photographs the space shuttles whenever their orbits carry them over the Bay Area has captured five strange and provocative images of the shuttle Columbia just as it was re-entering the Earth's atmosphere before dawn Saturday.</p>

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Sprites and elves dancing on thunder clouds have been captured by cameras on the space shuttle Columbia. The sprites, which are red flashes of electricity shooting up from thunderclouds 13 miles (20 km) into the ionosphere, and elves, which are glowing red doughnut shapes radiating 190 miles (300 km), were photographed Sunday by astronaut Dave Brown on the sprite hunt's first orbit. Columbia and a crew of seven astronauts are on a 16-day science mission that began Thursday. The study of sprites is part of an Israeli experiment known as MEIDEX that includes the first...