and midsummer in the Chilean Atacama
Desert as night falls telescopes at esos
observatories are just starting the
Knights observations but all of a sudden
a strange phenomenon appears in the
distance
what could this be let's take a closer
look
this is the esocast cutting-edge science
and life behind the scenes at ESO the
European Southern Observatory
it's the 20 of january $MONTH 2015 and
II so photo ambassador Petra heroic is
capturing the beauty of the Milky Way at
the last year observatory suddenly a
series of short-lived flashes of red
light appear out of nowhere above the
horizon
direction of the flashes Petra
photographs the very rare and peculiar
features known as red sprites
this makes him one of a small group of
people to successfully record them and
it's the first time that they have been
captured from a major astronomical
observatory
a week later Petra travels further north
to photograph the night skies above
ethos Paranal Observatory
just a few hours before daybreak he once
again witnesses a flurry of these
strange flashes over the Andes
from petrus perspective they appear to
come from the direction of the Rising
Galactic bulge of the Milky Way
but they actually
originated from another huge complex of
storms over Argentina more than 600
kilometres from power now
the storms are so strong that Petra can
observe and document another display of
their activity high in the atmosphere
gravity waves are generated by these
storms and form ripples in the greenish
layer of air glow
but what are these curious airy spirits
info understorms most cloud-to-ground
discharges are called negative lightning
as they transfer negative charges to the
ground
barely five percent of all this charges
are positive cloud-to-ground lightning
transferring positive charges from the
thundercloud to the ground
up to 10 times more energetic than
negative lightning positive lightning
seems to be what makes the Earth's
atmosphere a playground for red sprites
red sprites are a manifestation of
complex high-altitude electrical
processes they appear dancing in the
dark night skies as red figures composed
of beads
Huff's and tendrils of light
these unusual flashes are formed at
altitudes of up to 90 kilometers and get
their distinct red hue from the excited
nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere
red sprites were first suggested on
theoretical grounds in 1925 by the
scottish physicist Charles Wilson but it
wasn't until $MONTH 1989 that scientists
from the University of Minnesota managed
to capture the first image of a sprite
on film that they were photographing
aurorae that's just a few years later
the NASA Compton gamma-ray observatory
managed to discover gamma burst
originating above thunderstorms
another consequence of lower atmospheric
lightning activity astronauts have a
particularly good vantage point from
space and have also photographed sprites
using normal digital cameras from space
sprites appear shortly after their
corresponding lightning strike in this
image taken from space both the sprite
and the lightning flash are captured
there are many different species of
high-altitude atmospheric flashes on
earth commonly known as upper
atmospheric lighting
red sprites might be the most frequently
photographed upper atmospheric lightning
phenomena on earth but they can appear
rather dim when captured on camera
furthermore the exact time and location
of their appearance in the sky is quite
unpredictable they have been found to
show up over powerful
during them is valuable to scientists
trying to study these elusive spirits
that dance above thunderstorms and now
he so has also contributed a small piece
to this intriguing puzzle in the Earth's
atmosphere
history about the only person around it
doesn't have TV coverage to the baby and
a man they got the black up now and
you're gonna start getting a TV picture
now we are getting a
Victor Kilian out one all
art