Slashdot Mirror
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!"
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."
I watched the video, but could not find the still from TFA in it. At what point does the sprite happen?
Never mind! I found it. It's about 4 seconds into the video in the upper right. It flashed by very quickly so it is easy to miss.
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.
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).
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.
Another decades-old mystery solved by a Slashdot poster!
Oh, wait. No.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
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!
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.