Reverse Lightning, Sprites, Astronomy Photos
SpaceWeather.com reports that Gigantic Jets" were observed on August 20th in Oklahoma.
They have photos and video, it's very impressive - looks like fireworks. "Gigantic Jets," as well as Elves, Sprites, or Jets, [] area electrical discharges (basically lightning) that go upwards from a thunderstorm high into the ionosphere, and were discovered in 1994. SpaceWeather.com says that Gigantic Jets were only just discovered back in 2001, and are very rare. You can see more pictures on this site, and this NASA web page. There is an excellent illustration showing the difference between Jets, Sprites (see right), and Elves here At first glance at that graphic, it would look like the recent occurrence was a Gigantic Sprite, but I think the key differentiators are the jet-like appearance of the initial burst and the fact that it is happening over top of the thunderstorm itself, not stratiform clouds downwind.
Since I'm taking meteorology into Space, where it doesn't normally go, let me take a minute to let you know that AccuWeather.com has launched a new Astronomy Center (weather does affect the viewing of astronomical bodies, of course). It includes an interactive Star Chart, which is pretty neat, and a blog, by our very own Lisa Wieser, who's into astronomy.
Many meteorologists have astronomy as a secondary interest (we often wonder what might be beyond this sky of ours and the Sprites and Jets mentioned above is a great example). My father, who was partially responsible for my weather enthusiasm, was also an astronomer so I am secondarily interested in that science as well (in fact he took some great photos of the sun, stars and nebulas which are trapped on 35mm slides and I will one day scan in and release to the world). I remember standing out in the cold with him to get this picture:
Speaking of photos, we're starting to get some pretty killer shots from Astronomy photographers on the AccuWeather.com Weather Photo Gallery, so if you've got a telescope or you're just "shooting the moon," upload yours today. We've got the moon and stars, not to mention the beautiful photos from Sureshot, aka Kyle in Michigan, who has snapped Jupiter and even nebulas up close:
LATEST 5 PHOTOS FROM Sureshot ON OUR PHOTO GALLERY:
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