Mysterious Sprite Photographed By ISS Astronaut 86
astroengine writes "A very rare and beautiful view of a red sprite has been photographed by Expedition 31 astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) hovering just above a bright flash of lightning in a thunderstorm over Myanmar. First documented in a photo in 1989, red sprites are very brief flashes of optical activity that are associated with powerful lightning discharges in storms — although the exact mechanisms that create them aren't yet known. But the orbiting outpost seems like the perfect vantage point to learn more about them!"
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Sure why not.
Also you forgot to add profanity and the words "first-u post-u."
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Not big news. (Score:5, Funny)
It's just a palette swap from a blue sprite. Try attacking it with ice or water attacks.
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Don't you get it? What else do you think causes these mysterious optical activities!
Re:I am disappoint (Score:5, Funny)
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THIS IS A PICTURE OF THOR
No way. If it was, the sprites would be blonde.
Re:I am disappoint (Score:4)
Ignorant. The Real Thor had many nicknames, of which a common one was Redbeard.
mark
Thor leaps on a horse, and cries, "Giddyap! I am Thor!"
Horse: Of course your thore, you forgot your thaddle, thilly.
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It is known.
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Me too, but only because I thought they had photographed Pac-Man or Mario in space :(
Couldn't see the pixels (Score:3)
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It's using this algorithm [slashdot.org].
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Mysterious, photographed by ISS and no mention of aliens. I am disappoint.
Actually, TFA does mention aliens:
ANALYSIS: Otherworldly Sprites May Signal Alien Life
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Because sprites are connected to lightning, and lightning plays a key role in many theories concerning how life first developed on Earth, it stands to reason that the existence of sprites on other planets (both in our own solar system and others) may be something to look out for when searching for signs of alien life, according to Dubrovin.
Re:I am disappoint (Score:5, Informative)
Well.. it's a very poorly worded headline. The Analysis is quite clearheaded. Researchers have seen sprites in other atmospheres indicating that lightning is occurring. Since our current theories of the creation of life believe lightning played a part in the formation of organic matter then it's another indication that some of the correct conditions for the creation of life exist on other planets. No conclusive evidence of anything... just more evidence backing up what we currently believe to be true.
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Lightning may sometimes also cause mutations in bacteria close to the strike. Just think of it as another variety of ionizing radiation.
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The headline is, of course, intentionally poorly worded to drive page views.
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No no. If "It's A Wondeful Life" taught us nothing else, it's "When a red sprite steals your breath, an angel dies a fiery death."
Angelic atmospheric re-entry. Easy enough.
Where (when) is it? (Score:2)
I watched the video [nasa.gov], but could not find the still from TFA in it. At what point does the sprite happen?
Re:Where (when) is it? (Score:5, Informative)
I watched the video [nasa.gov], but could not find the still from TFA in it. At what point does the sprite happen?
Never mind! I found it. It's about 4 seconds into the video in the upper right. It flashed by very quickly so it is easy to miss.
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It's BIG BOO TAY (Score:2, Funny)
When man bites dog, it's news (Score:5, Funny)
A very rare and beautiful view of a red sprite has been photographed by Expedition 31 astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) hovering just above a bright flash of lightning in a thunderstorm over Myanmar.
You see, this is the kind of poor journalism that gets me upset: The International Space Station somehow manages to come to a complete stop in its orbit and hover -- or somehow move out to the Clarke Belt, and stay geosynchronous -- and what does the reporter think is newsworthy? The pretty photograph it took while it was there.
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From the context of what was written, I didn't parse it as the space station doing the hovering, but the sprite doing the hovering.
Re:When man bites dog, it's news (Score:5, Informative)
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Read english:
A very rare and beautiful view of a red sprite has been photographed, by Expedition 31 astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), hovering just above a bright flash of lightning in a thunderstorm over Myanmar.
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A very rare and beautiful view of a red sprite has been photographed, by Expedition 31 astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), hovering just above a bright flash of lightning in a thunderstorm over Myanmar.
That's one possibility, to be sure, but I would have preferred:
A very rare and beautiful red sprite, hovering just above a bright flash of lightning in a thunderstorm over Myanmar, has been photographed by Expedition 31 astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
I'm still not wild about "hovering", especially for such a transient phenomenon, but none of the alternatives that come to mind (replacing with "appearing" or "visible", or just deleting the word) fill me with enthusiasm, so it gets a shrug for now.
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Actually, the first comma shouldn't be there. Commas, in this case, set off the subordinate clause that begins with "hovering just above". You can determine if a clause is subordinate by moving it around in the sentence and checking that the sentence still makes sense.
Hovering just above a bright flash of lightning in a thunderstorm over Myanmar, a very rare and beautiful view of a red sprite has been photographed by Expedition 31 astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
or
A very rare and b
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Get used to it. The field of journalism has been gutted by news being freely available on the internet. Ads don't pay enough to pay for the level of journalism and editorial oversight that you want and people are increasingly less willing to pay for higher quality news. Grammar errors aren't going to go away or become less frequent.
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Who else read "Mysterious Sprite Photographed" and instantly thought they were talking the soda and immediately thought "WTF makes a Sprite mysterious?"
Myanmar? (Score:2)
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Sprite? (Score:2, Funny)
Ah those were the days - when the graphics chips moved objects around the screen called sprites, and you could do fancy things with copper lists...
Going even further back, there was the Austin-Healy Sprite, a traditional British sportscar
And back more on topic - Why do Astronauts drink Sprite? Because they can't get 7-Up
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Code Red [energyfiend.com]
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And back more on topic - Why do Astronauts drink Sprite? Because they can't get 7-Up
Still too soon man, too soon.
2 for 1 (Score:2)
Mmm.... (Score:1)
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Runaway electrons colliding into oxygen (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, that looks extremely similar to the red light created by the Starfish Prime [damninteresting.com] thermonuclear bomb detonation in space! In that case, it was fast electrons from the nuclear explosion, spiralling along magnetic field lines and eventually colliding with oxygen atoms in the atmosphere, which emit a red glow when excited.
I'm going to guess that this is a picture of oxygen being excited by runaway electrons produced by lightning [google.com]. Cool!
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Yup.
Pretty much the electrons that weren't neutralized at the cloud because they were moving too fast. :)
Another interesting thing about lightning is that if it's strong enough, a strike will give off measurable 511keV gammas... possibly due to pair-production reactions.
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I was thinking along the lines of an aurora event. Solar radiation and nitrogen in the thermosphere. I wonder if the sprite and lightning strike are along/close to a magnetic field line in Earths magnetosphere.
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The red seen in the image of the sprite from the ISS is caused by emission of molecular nitrogen. See Kanmae et al. 2010a for a description of how the spectral content is measured. Sprites also have some blue emission, which normally is only seen from a high flying airplane, or the spacecraft due to the scattering of the blue light by the atmosphere. Another reference to the blue end of the sprite spectrum can be found in Kanmae et al 2010b.
Interestingly we are currently making sprite observations with
Re:Lens flare? (Score:5, Funny)
Another decades-old mystery solved by a Slashdot poster!
Oh, wait. No.
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looks like... (Score:2)
That looks like it might be excited hydrogen.
not so perfect outpost (Score:2)
Cupola was Worth It (Score:5, Interesting)
That Cupola dome on the ISS has been worth every penny put into it. The sheer volume of photo and video being transmitted back from the station and into the public domain is staggering.
And as this incident reveals, these photographs serve as an important observational record too.
In fact, it's rather disappointing that we have so few satellites capable of simply taking pictures of the earth(excepting spy satellites which take pictures of only very small parts of it). It might seem frivolous, but the reality is that we really don't know what phenomena or new perspectives we are likely to see from space. To say nothing of the public and educational outreach afforded by such images.
Would it really cost so much to send up small satellites with embedded cameras? Couldn't we do without one or two bank CEOs in return for high def pictures of our planet?
Did it have prominently mounted headlights? (Score:2)
Lame... (Score:1)
Looks like someone hard dirty (Score:1)
ketchup fingers.
not exactly accurate (Score:1)
This is less of a one in a million shot than they make it sound, as there's a lot more light emitted so it sort of bounces around for a lot longer than normal lightning. By the looks of the light spread in that photo, h
6 second mark in the video. (Score:2)
Cloaking Device Fail (Score:5, Funny)
Luckily no one will believe the real truth thanks to a long running public disinformation campaign designed to discredit all claims of alien interaction. Roswell was the first major mishap (stupid joyriding teenagers). Area 51 doesn't actually contain anything, the ship itself was towed and the kids sent for reprogramming, but the distraction was necessary.
Anyway, carry on, your theories are amusing to us.
Idiots, it's the third impact! (Score:2)
And I though we had until Dec 2012...
The Possessed are in Myanmar! (Score:1)