Automatic camera captured a crazy dance of the sprites

Every night the organization Chinese meteorological monitoring (CMMO) launches an automated camera in Shandong province, which monitors the activity of meteors over the Yellow sea. June 9, Meteora was the most boring from what I caught optics.

"It's crazy, says Wang Lei, from CMMO. We captured a spectacular flash of red sprites".

Sprites is an exotic form of lightning. Unlike ordinary lightning, which zigzag down to earth, sprites "shoot up". "Our cameras caught the sprites, flashing close to several meteors, says Lei. I can't Express in words our astonishment."

The above picture shows all the meteors and sprites obtained during the hours of the storm.

But the group of sprites from CMMO.

"This type of sprite "Medusa" with a halo, from where a short, bright elements grow from well-branched tentacles," says the scientist Oscar van der Velde from the Technical University of Catalonia, Spain.

It is believed that the solar minimum may enhance the sprites. During this phase of the solar cycle, cosmic rays from deep space penetrate the Earth's atmosphere in greater numbers than usual. Some researchers believe that cosmic rays can provide ionizing "the spark" that causes a lot of sprites. If so, stay tuned, as the solar minimum deepens.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»