Post by auntym on Feb 11, 2017 11:05:09 GMT -6
www.businessinsider.com/blue-jet-astronaut-images-video-space-2017-2
An astronaut has recorded a 'first of its kind' video of mysterious blue jets of electricity
by Dave Mosher
Feb. 9, 2017
A thunderstorm as seen from space. O. Chanrion et al./Geophysical Research Letters; Andreas Mogensen/ESA/NASA
We're used to lightning that shoots down from clouds, but a lesser-known form of electricity blasts up from cloud tops — and out toward space.
Called blue jets, these gigantic electrical discharges are rarely photographed. Typically, only pilots who fly over active thunderstorms see or photograph them. Satellites have recorded them, too, but not very well.
However, an astronaut in space has filmed a first-of-its-kind color video of elusive blue jets, according to a January 2017 study in Geophysical Research Letters.
Researchers behind the study asked European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen to perform the "Thor experiment," named after the Norse god of lightning, back in 2015. His mission: document thunderstorms from the International Space Station (ISS), located some 250 miles above Earth, with a very sensitive video camera.
Mogensen ended up filming a particularly active storm cell over India's Bay of Bengal, and in the footage he managed to catch this oddity:
If you missed it, below is a still-image breakdown of the thunderstorm.
Right after lightning from below the storm illuminates the clouds, you can see the blue-purple cone of a blue jet pulsate a little, then finally shoot out of the cloud tops.
It rises more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) high, and then fades away:
CONTINUE READING: www.businessinsider.com/blue-jet-astronaut-images-video-space-2017-2
An astronaut has recorded a 'first of its kind' video of mysterious blue jets of electricity
by Dave Mosher
Feb. 9, 2017
A thunderstorm as seen from space. O. Chanrion et al./Geophysical Research Letters; Andreas Mogensen/ESA/NASA
We're used to lightning that shoots down from clouds, but a lesser-known form of electricity blasts up from cloud tops — and out toward space.
Called blue jets, these gigantic electrical discharges are rarely photographed. Typically, only pilots who fly over active thunderstorms see or photograph them. Satellites have recorded them, too, but not very well.
However, an astronaut in space has filmed a first-of-its-kind color video of elusive blue jets, according to a January 2017 study in Geophysical Research Letters.
Researchers behind the study asked European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen to perform the "Thor experiment," named after the Norse god of lightning, back in 2015. His mission: document thunderstorms from the International Space Station (ISS), located some 250 miles above Earth, with a very sensitive video camera.
Mogensen ended up filming a particularly active storm cell over India's Bay of Bengal, and in the footage he managed to catch this oddity:
If you missed it, below is a still-image breakdown of the thunderstorm.
Right after lightning from below the storm illuminates the clouds, you can see the blue-purple cone of a blue jet pulsate a little, then finally shoot out of the cloud tops.
It rises more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) high, and then fades away:
CONTINUE READING: www.businessinsider.com/blue-jet-astronaut-images-video-space-2017-2