An astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS) posted a stunning photo of the “blue starter” – a rare type of lightning that strikes upwards.
Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency ESA – one of 10 people on the space station, which is currently 400 km above the earth – took the picture on September 9, but only recently uploaded it online.
The subtle blue light seen in Europe during thunder is a “transient light event” also known as lightning in the upper atmosphere.
These bright, unexpected flashes of light typically form about 60 miles above a major thunderstorm on our planet, creating flares that last only a few milliseconds.
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Image posted online by Thomas Pesquet showing a subtle blue transient light event in Europe’s upper atmosphere
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BLUE JETS DAN BLUE STARTER
A blue jet is a lightning discharge that reaches through the stratosphere.
The blue starter is shorter and brighter than the blue jet, but also points upwards.
“The blue starter looks like a blue jet that never made it,” says Dr. Victor P. Pasko, professor of electrical engineering at Penn State.
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The newly published photo is a single image taken from an extended time lapse.
“A time-lapse image in Europe shows thunder with transient light events in the upper atmosphere,” Pesquet said. Flickr.
“This is a very rare occurrence and we have facilities outside the European Columbus Laboratory dedicated to observing these flashes of light.
“The interesting thing about this lightning bolt is that only a few decades ago it was observed anecdotally by pilots and scientists weren’t convinced that it actually existed.”
The ISS, which is 357.5 feet wide and 239.4 feet long, completes a complete orbit around the Earth every 90 minutes.
Pesquet – who is currently on his second visit to the ISS – said it would be great to get such a shot while flying over the equator, where there are more thunderstorms.
Although Pesquet didn’t specify exactly what the light event was in the meantime, it could be a blue jet – a lightning discharge that reached through the stratosphere.
Thomas Pesquet, pictured here in 2020 before his second visit to the ISS, is currently one of 10 people on the space station.
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The International Space Station (ISS, pictured), 357.5 feet wide and 239.4 feet long, completes a complete orbit around the Earth every 90 minutes
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It can also be a blue starter – a phenomenon closely related to jet blue, except that they are shorter and brighter.
“The blue starter looks like a blue jet that never made it,” says Dr. Victor P. Pasko, professor of electrical engineering at Penn State.
MailOnline has contacted NASA regarding the final classification of the event.
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Many of the transient light events that occur on Earth during thunderstorms are described by a number of fantastical names, including elves, sprites, and trolls – but these are acronyms for technical terms.
On Earth, elves, sprites, and trolls are reddish in color due to their interaction with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere.
The late experimental physicist John Winckler accidentally discovered the sprite while helping test a new low-light video camera in 1989.
On Earth, sprites and elves appear reddish due to their interaction with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere
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They appear as a vertical line above a thunderstorm at an altitude of about 24 to 55 miles (40 to 90 kilometers) and can resemble a jellyfish with long tendrils running down to the ground.
Although they normally turn bright red on Earth, they appear bright blue on Jupiter, as images from NASA’s Juno spacecraft showed last year.
Fairies, meanwhile, appear as flat discs that shine up to 200 miles above the sky in Earth’s upper atmosphere.
This happens and is well above the ground-cloud energetic lightning strike with positive or negative polarity
Confirmed by cameras on the ISS in 1992, the elf appears high above an energetic cloud-earth flash with a positive or negative polarity.
