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DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

  • 11 December, 2023

  • 15 Min Read

Red Sprite

The European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut captures images of red sprite from ISS Cupola observatory.

  • It is dubbed as red lightening which lasts merely a millisecond.
  • It is a part of transient luminous event (TLE), a rare electrical discharge that can appear over thunder clouds.

Unlike typical lightning bolts that descend from the clouds to the ground, a sprite behaves inversely, ascending into the atmosphere, resembling a form of reverse lightning.

  • Location – It forms between 40 and 80 kilometers above Earth and is rarely visible from Earth.
  • Thor-Davis ISS experiment – It aims to investigate upper atmospheric lightning and its implications on greenhouse gas levels, thereby influencing global warming.
  • It will photograph storms from the vantage point of the International Space Station's (ISS) observatory.
  • Davis Camera – It works like the retina in our eyes that is sensitive to changes in light, allowing it to take up to the equivalent of 100.000 pictures per second.

Source:


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