精灵闪电的高清影像

2019 October 8

Sprite Lightning in HD
Image Credit & Copyright: Stephane Vetter (TWAN)

Explanation: This phenomenon occurs in the sky over our heads, not the sea. It is a type of lightning known as red sprite, and rarely has it ever been photographed in this detail. Even though sprites have been recorded for over 30 years, their root cause remains unknown. Some thunderstorms have them, but most don’t. These mysterious bursts of light in the upper atmosphere momentarily resemble gigantic jellyfish. A few years ago high speed videos were taken detailing how red sprites actually develop. The featured image was captured last month in high definition from Italy. One unusual feature of sprites is that they are relatively cold — they operate more like long fluorescent light tubes than hot compact light bulbs. In general, red sprites take only a fraction of a second to occur and are best seen when powerful thunderstorms are visible from the side.

精灵闪电的高清影像
影像来源与版权: Stephane Vetter (TWAN)

说明：这种现象出现在我们头顶的天空上，而不是大海里。这是一种被称为红色精灵的闪电，但像这样清晰的影像却非常罕见。尽管“红色精灵”已经有30多年的观测史了，但它的成因仍然不得而知。有些雷暴中会出现这种闪电，但多数是没有的。这些上层大气中的神秘光芒看起来就像巨大的水母。几年前拍摄的一些高速视频，非常详细的展现了“红色精灵”的演化过程。这幅高清影像是上个月在意大利拍摄的。精灵闪电的一个不同寻常的特点是它们相对低温，其发光方式更像是长荧光灯管，而不是炽热的紧凑型荧光灯。红色精灵通常只持续几分之一秒，红色精灵在从侧面观看雷暴时视觉效果最佳。