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Mysterious Sprite Photographed By ISS Astronaut
astroengine writes "A very rare and beautiful view of a red sprite has been photographed by Expedition 31 astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) hovering just above a bright flash of lightning in a thunderstorm over Myanmar. First documented in a photo in 1989, red sprites are very brief flashes of optical activity that are associated with powerful lightning discharges in storms — although the exact mechanisms that create them aren't yet known. But the orbiting outpost seems like the perfect vantage point to learn more about them!"
Sure why not.
Also you forgot to add profanity and the words "first-u post-u."
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
Don't you get it? What else do you think causes these mysterious optical activities!
Me too, but only because I thought they had photographed Pac-Man or Mario in space :(
Yeah, I was sort of disappointed because the photo in the article wasn't sharp enough for me to resolve the pixel edges.
he's coming
I watched the video, but could not find the still from TFA in it. At what point does the sprite happen?
The red lectroids are coming, the red lectroids are coming!
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
It's just a palette swap from a blue sprite. Try attacking it with ice or water attacks.
"/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit is a gimp plugin and must be run by the gimp in order to be used."
Bjork was up there researching experiences for her new album.
THIS IS A PICTURE OF THOR
A very rare and beautiful view of a red sprite has been photographed by Expedition 31 astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) hovering just above a bright flash of lightning in a thunderstorm over Myanmar.
You see, this is the kind of poor journalism that gets me upset: The International Space Station somehow manages to come to a complete stop in its orbit and hover -- or somehow move out to the Clarke Belt, and stay geosynchronous -- and what does the reporter think is newsworthy? The pretty photograph it took while it was there.
That's where Top Gun was filmed, right?
Came expecting aliens.... left disappointed....
Ah those were the days - when the graphics chips moved objects around the screen called sprites, and you could do fancy things with copper lists...
Going even further back, there was the Austin-Healy Sprite, a traditional British sportscar
And back more on topic - Why do Astronauts drink Sprite? Because they can't get 7-Up
The video on the link of Saturn's aurora includes some lovely animation.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
I can almost taste it's tingling tartness!
Mysterious, photographed by ISS and no mention of aliens. I am disappoint.
Actually, TFA does mention aliens:
ANALYSIS: Otherworldly Sprites May Signal Alien Life
Wow, that looks extremely similar to the red light created by the Starfish Prime thermonuclear bomb detonation in space! In that case, it was fast electrons from the nuclear explosion, spiralling along magnetic field lines and eventually colliding with oxygen atoms in the atmosphere, which emit a red glow when excited.
I'm going to guess that this is a picture of oxygen being excited by runaway electrons produced by lightning. Cool!
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
Because sprites are connected to lightning, and lightning plays a key role in many theories concerning how life first developed on Earth, it stands to reason that the existence of sprites on other planets (both in our own solar system and others) may be something to look out for when searching for signs of alien life, according to Dubrovin.
nt
Well.. it's a very poorly worded headline. The Analysis is quite clearheaded. Researchers have seen sprites in other atmospheres indicating that lightning is occurring. Since our current theories of the creation of life believe lightning played a part in the formation of organic matter then it's another indication that some of the correct conditions for the creation of life exist on other planets. No conclusive evidence of anything... just more evidence backing up what we currently believe to be true.
No no. If "It's A Wondeful Life" taught us nothing else, it's "When a red sprite steals your breath, an angel dies a fiery death."
Angelic atmospheric re-entry. Easy enough.
He took a duck to the face at 250 knots.
THIS IS A PICTURE OF THOR
No way. If it was, the sprites would be blonde.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
That looks like it might be excited hydrogen.
Lightning may sometimes also cause mutations in bacteria close to the strike. Just think of it as another variety of ionizing radiation.
Another decades-old mystery solved by a Slashdot poster!
Oh, wait. No.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It is known.
Much more cost effective and much better coverage would be obtained by a fleet of microsatellites with cameras and special software to identify and photograph such events.
That Cupola dome on the ISS has been worth every penny put into it. The sheer volume of photo and video being transmitted back from the station and into the public domain is staggering.
And as this incident reveals, these photographs serve as an important observational record too.
In fact, it's rather disappointing that we have so few satellites capable of simply taking pictures of the earth(excepting spy satellites which take pictures of only very small parts of it). It might seem frivolous, but the reality is that we really don't know what phenomena or new perspectives we are likely to see from space. To say nothing of the public and educational outreach afforded by such images.
Would it really cost so much to send up small satellites with embedded cameras? Couldn't we do without one or two bank CEOs in return for high def pictures of our planet?
May the Maths Be with you!
The correct form is "disappointed". If you had stayed in school, you would know that.
Yep just people imagining things, good catch.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Did it have prominently mounted headlights?
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Wow, I am so glad I'm not you.
It could be Kosst Amojan finding a new celestial temple
I prefer my lightning phenomena in 3-d. This is the Warcraft 2 of space.
ketchup fingers.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
There are a couple misleading things in that summary. It's actually not really a "lightning flash" it's an electrical discharge that heads way the hell up into the atmosphere instead of touching the ground. They're like 10x taller than a lightning strike to the ground too (50 miles approx)
This is less of a one in a million shot than they make it sound, as there's a lot more light emitted so it sort of bounces around for a lot longer than normal lightning. By the looks of the light spread in that photo, he actually missed the discharge itself and that's just the resulting glow. You can find some really, really good shots of what one actually looks like using google image search.
I thought the whole video was interesting. It was especially cool to see synchronization of some of the lightning flashes over long distances. At around 24sec, you can see multiple lightning flashes that occur simultaneously even though it appears they are spaced many miles apart. I didn't know lightning was linked over such great distances.
Michael Bay in SPAAAACCEEEEEE
Mysterious, photographed by ISS and no mention of aliens. I am disappoint.
From the Book of G'Kar (New Interplanetary Heretical Translation):
There are things in the universe billions of years older than either of our races. They're vast, timeless, and if they're aware of us at all, it is as little more than ants, and we have as much chance of communicating with them as an ant has with us. We know, we've tried, and we've learned that we can either stay out from underfoot or be stepped on.
That's it? That's all you know?
Yes, they are a mystery. And I am both terrified and reassured to know that there are still wonders in the universe, that we have not yet explained everything. Whatever they are, they walk near the upper atmosphere, and they must walk there alone.
For thoses who are watching the video. It is at the 6 sec mark in the middle right. http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Videos/CrewEarthObservationsVideos/myanmar_iss_20120430/myanmar_iss_20120430HD_web.mov
The headline is, of course, intentionally poorly worded to drive page views.
It's very obviously this viewed from a different angle:
duh?!?!!!!
Ignorant. The Real Thor had many nicknames, of which a common one was Redbeard.
mark
Thor leaps on a horse, and cries, "Giddyap! I am Thor!"
Horse: Of course your thore, you forgot your thaddle, thilly.
It's probably one of the tens of thousands of alien vessels monitoring our world. Every once in a while a lightning storm overloads their cloaking equipment and we see it as a bright flash. I'm sure the captain of the Myanmar surveillance contingent will be properly disciplined and reduced in rank for allow one of his ships to be seen even indirectly by the subjects under observation.
Luckily no one will believe the real truth thanks to a long running public disinformation campaign designed to discredit all claims of alien interaction. Roswell was the first major mishap (stupid joyriding teenagers). Area 51 doesn't actually contain anything, the ship itself was towed and the kids sent for reprogramming, but the distraction was necessary.
Anyway, carry on, your theories are amusing to us.
Id be willing to bet that the red sprite is from charged particles hitting the ionosphere, creating an aurora from the inside.
News flash: ideas aren't automatically wrong just because they weren't first suggested by some snob with a Ph.D.
And I though we had until Dec 2012...
But... the future refused to change.
Ready the SD platforms...
Your Thor?! I'm tho thor I can hardly pith...