Sprites


Sprites are electrical discharges between clouds of thunderstorms and the lower ionosphere.

An amplified CCD video camera recorded this display during 1995 from a field site near Fort Collins, Colorado. A few lights mark the horizon, above which a distant overcast is silhouetted by glow from intense lightning associated with the sprites. These high-altitude phenomena typically last a few tens of milliseconds and exhibit a characteristic structure of delicate tendrils merging into a vertical column. The sprite is topped by a diffuse crown spreading into the lower ionosphere (approx. 90 km).

A short description of the sprite phenomenon by S. B. Mende, D. D. Sentman and E. M. Wescott with the title "Lightning between earth and space" can be found in the August 1997 issue of Scientific American at pages 36-39.

View sprite images

Last update: 25 June 1998 by
Harald U. Frey, hfrey at ssl.berkeley.edu
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