March 30, 2021
When you were born, the Sun rose on a world that had never seen you before. Since then, every dawn has arrived in a universe subtly altered...
Red Sprite Lightning over the Andes
Birthday · March 30, 2021
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APOD published March 30, 2021. Credit: Yuri Beletsky (Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory, TWAN). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What are those red filaments in the sky? They are a rarely seen form of lightning confirmed only about 30 years ago: red sprites. Recent research has shown that following a powerful positive cloud-to-ground lightning strike, red sprites may start as 100-meter balls of ionized air that shoot down from about 80-km high at 10 percent the speed of light. They are quickly followed by a group of upward streaking ionized balls. The featured image was taken earlier this year from Las Campanas observatory in Chile over the Andes Mountains in Argentina. Red sprites take only a fraction of a second to occur and are best seen when powerful thunderstorms are visible from the side. APOD via Instagram in: English, Indonesian, Persian, and Portuguese
Image credit: Yuri Beletsky (Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory, TWAN)