Astronaut snaps giant red 'jellyfish' sprite over North America during upward-shooting lightning event
Astronaut snaps giant red 'jellyfish' sprite over North America during upward-shooting lightning event
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Astronaut snaps giant red 'jellyfish' sprite over North America during upward-shooting lightning event
Anyone know why it goes from blueish to pinkish in color at the end of the arc? It looks like the same color shift that happens in a plasma globe.
Good question. From the wikipedia article on sprites : "Sprites get their characteristic red color from excitation of nitrogen in the low pressure environment of the upper mesosphere. At such low pressures quenching by atomic oxygen is much faster than that of nitrogen, allowing for nitrogen emissions to dominate despite no difference in composition."