“Just. Wow.” So said NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers as she caught sight of a phenomenon known as a sprite from the International Space Station (ISS) 250 miles above Earth.
Ayers shared an image on her X account showing the fleeting phenomenon. You can see the sprite — essentially a large-scale electrical discharge — in the center of the picture as a bluish-white flash on the clouds, with a thin, red, tree-like burst of light shooting upward into the dark sky.
“As we went over Mexico and the U.S. this morning, I caught this sprite,” the American astronaut, who arrived in orbit in March, wrote in a post on X.
As she explains, sprites are known as Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) that occur above clouds and are triggered by intense electrical activity in thunderstorms below.
Seen from the ISS, the sprite likely lasted for less than a tenth of a second, suggesting that Ayers’s image is a frame taken from a video that was monitoring the skies over Earth.
“We have a great view above the clouds, so scientists can use these types of pictures to better understand the formation, characteristics, and relationship of TLEs to thunderstorms,” Ayers wrote in her post.
Unlike aurora, which are easily observed from the ground as well as space, it’s much harder to observe a sprite from terra firma as it requires special conditions such as clear dark skies, distant large thunderstorms, and minimal light pollution.
Visual reports of sprites were first recorded in 1886, but it wasn’t until July 4, 1989 — exactly 36 years ago — that the first images were taken, by scientists at the University of Minnesota.
For anyone wondering about their effect on aircraft, sprites actually take place way above commercial flight altitudes and therefore pose no direct danger to aircraft. While their electromagnetic pulses could theoretically affect an aircraft’s electronics, no incidents have been reported.
