Transient luminous events information movie#

With imagery provided by ASIM, scientists might get a little closer to understanding the physics of these colorful flashes. The ASIM experiment will observe these events in two ultraviolet optical bands, as well as the X- and gamma-rays. Later this year, the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) will head to the ISS to continuously monitor thunderstorms-combing the atmosphere for transient luminous events. However, scientists need to know much more about these events to formulate any firm conclusions, a For example, the interaction between nitrogen and electricity is thought to give red sprites their color. These electrical charges from thunderstorms may alter chemistry in the upper atmosphere, which could have implications for Earth’s radiation balance. They are generally associated with thunderstorms and are thought to be caused by the lightning within the troposphere. It isn’t clear what causes these blue flashes scientists, in fact, aren’t sure how familiar cloud-to-ground lightning forms, either. Transient luminous events (TLEs) are short-lived electrical discharge that occur in the upper atmosphere.

The flashes were about 1-kilometer wide, and 18 kilometers in altitude. It is the first time these bright, unpredictable and extremely brief flashes of light - formally known as transient luminous events, or TLE's - have been observed on another world.

8, he filmed a doozy near India, and recorded 245 blue flashes above the clouds in a 160-second video. (Credit: D D Sentman, University of Alaska in Fairbanks) The various types of transient luminous events. His work, which was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, also proves that the ISS is a perfect lab for studying elves and pixies, and a planned follow-up mission should reveal even more. But ESA astronaut Andreas Morgensen, while aboard the International Space Station in September 2015, filmed hundreds of blue jets flashing over a thunderstorm that was pounding the Bay of Bengal, confirming a mysterious atmospheric phenomenon.Īccording to Morgensen and researchers at the Denmark National Space Institute, these observations are the first of their kind, and offer a rare glimpse of poorly understood atmospheric phenomena. Airplane pilots have reported seeing them, but their elusive nature makes them hard to study. This mixed-bag of quasi-mythological terms are all names for transient luminous events, or, quite simply, forms of lightning that dance atop thunderstorm clouds. (Credit: ESA) In Earth’s upper atmosphere, blue jets, red sprites, pixies, halos, trolls and elves streak toward space, rarely caught in the act by human eyes.

Transient luminous events information movie#

(Adding an intense action movie score is optional).A blue jet caught on camera over the Bay of Bengal. While Cassie's ultimate goal will be to aid search-and-rescue operations, it will start out by delivering packages.Īnd one savvy drone owner finally found a clever workaround for rescuing drones that have crashed in unreachable locations: Use a larger drone and a coat hanger for a DIY retrieval operation.

The three-month old bot walks much the same way as humans do, which makes it more adept at handling various types of terrain, and has a similar three-planed hip joint movement which makes it more steerable than earlier bipedal models. Meanwhile, Agility Robotics introduced us to Cassie, a bipedal robot that can walk smoothly over pavement, grass and lose soil without issue. However, viewing angles were less of a challenge for ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen who was able to a highly-sensitive camera to snag video footage of 245 flashes of blue lightning while he was stationed on the ISS in 2015. Even satellites have had little luck at capturing images of the upper-atmosphere lighting. Called 'Transient Luminous Events', the phenomena are notoriously hard to study as they occur 25-60 miles above thunderstorms.

Today on In Case You Missed It: We get a much closer look at electrical discharge phenomena courtesy of a video filmed from the International Space Station.