Elusive red sprites captured in sky near Chile's Very Large Telescope
Elusive red sprites captured in sky near Chile's Very Large Telescope
You might not have realized that sprites are real, but this new photo taken at the Paranal Observatory in Chile proves otherwise -- sort of.
by Michael Franco
@writermfranco
/4 February 2015 8:15 pm GMT
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Seen on the right side of the image, red sprites, which accompany certain lightning strikes, are extremely difficult to caputre on film.
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P. Horálek/ESO
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Capturing sprites might sound like something best undertaken in the pages of a children's book, but a very real photographer for the European Southern Observatory recently did just that. Of course, the sprites he captured were of the atmospheric rather than phantasmagoric variety, but they're still pretty splendid to behold.
Sprites are red or orange streaks that take place 25-55 miles above thunderstorms, and they sometimes happen when a cloud-to-ground lightning strike occurs.
Capturing sprites might sound like something best undertaken in the pages of a children's book, but a very real photographer for the European Southern Observatory recently did just that. Of course, the sprites he captured were of the atmospheric rather than phantasmagoric variety, but they're still pretty splendid to behold.
Sprites are red or orange streaks that take place 25-55 miles above thunderstorms, and they sometimes happen when a cloud-to-ground lightning strike occurs.
A few days earlier, Horálek snapped the shot below by the nearby La Silla Observatory. It shows a different set of sprites on the horizon at the bottom left.
More:
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/red-sprites-have-been-captured-in-the-sky-at-an-eso-observatory/
