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Sprites trip the light fantastic high up above electrical storm , but they ’re not furtive mythical creatures . They ’re ready bursts of electricity that have left atmospheric scientists in the wickedness about their origins .
novel extremist - high - speed video shows faerie form as fast - paced balls of electrical energy , not streaks or tendrils as old footage suggested .
Lightning reaches down from clouds in a step-by-step manner. But scientists don’t know exactly how it works.
The find challenge current theory of howmysterious spritesform and could conduct to new understanding of atmospheric chemistry . The findings are detailed in this month ’s payoff of the journalGeophysical Research Letters .
Young mystery
researcher predicted the existence of red sprites as early as 1920 , but verbatim evidence happen only in 1989 , when scientist testing a young low - light camera accidentally videotape the burst high up above thunderstorms . Since then , atmospheric scientists have learned lightning below tempest clouds is responsible for forcreating sprites above .
“ When the lightning strikes , an dissymmetry of charge chassis between the tempest cloud and the strain above it , ” said Hans Nielsen , an atmospherical physicist at the University of Alaska and atomic number 27 - author of the new study . Nature ’s way of evening thing out , he explained , is a rapid firing off of electricity — a faery — that can extend as much as 20 miles upwards .
In the night sky , sprites can briefly outshine all other objects . “ You could , theoretically , see them in daylight , ” Nielsen said .
Standard high - speed video can record sprites at 1,000 frame per second ( Federal Protective Service ) , or about 16 times faster than a stock camcorder . But sprites are so transient that they last for only a few form of even that film , hiding any hint as to how they form .
Newer equipment used by Nielsen ’s team , however , captures the earth 10 fourth dimension quicker , at 10,000 Federal Protective Service .
egg of fire
From the mountains of New Mexico , Nielsen and his colleagues enamour faery in the routine .
“ We now see them as compact balls of light , shooting downwards , then upwards , at one ten percent the speed of ignitor , ” Nielsen told LiveScience . “ ho-hum camera ca n’t show this . All you see arestreaks or tendrilsor blurred versions of the formal . ”
Nielsen estimates each nut ’s size of it to be as giving as a football field of battle but noted other researchers recall they are more like the size of it of a small house . “ But until we film one closer up , we ca n’t know for trusted , ” he suppose .
Although the size of the glowing balls might be impressive , their collective energy is amazingly low , say Alaska University physicist David Sentman , also a study co - author .
“ A lump commons estimate of the total DOE in a‘typical ’ large spriteis one to 10 megajoules , ” Sentman say . That ’s about enough vitality to power a light bulb for a twenty-four hour period . Still , the vim is released so quickly that Nielsen cerebrate some yet - to - be - describe atmospheric chemistry is happen .
“ In footage we see a glowing powder of fabric impart behind , long after the faerie itself is gone , ” Nielsen say .
Nielsen thinks this may be freshly formed compound , such as nitrogen oxides — which eat up up ozone gas , but is uncertain what else is produced .
“ We do n’t yet sleep with if this sprite process is important on a large scale , ” Nielsen enounce . “ We may believe they ’re more like rainbow — just pretty to look at and otherwise undistinguished . But could they have prominent effects down the route ? That ’s a interrogation we need to answer . ”
telecasting : Sprite ’s Balls of FireThe World ’s Weirdest WeatherThe Science of Lightning
