An astronaut from the European Space Agency (ESA) on the International Space Station (ISS) recently captured a photo and timelapse of a rare red sprite lightning event.
Andreas Mogensen's routine photographs of the Earth, taken every Saturday with the station's Davis camera from an altitude of 250 miles, reveal stunning vistas as the ISS completes 16 daily orbits around the Earth.
The ESA astronaut captured this spectacle while observing a thunderstorm build up over the Earth. He explained that red sprites appear after a thunderstrike and are much higher than the clouds, making them challenging to study from the ground and primarily observed from space.
The Davis camera, an event camera, senses changes in contrast like the human eye rather than capturing an image like a regular camera. This feature is crucial for photographing split-second events like lightning flashes.
Olivier Chanrion, the lead scientist for thw experiment and a senior researcher at DTU Space, praised the images taken by Andreas, stressing the Davis camera's high temporal resolution necessary for such observations.
Atmospheric Zoo of Light and Energy
© Photo : European Space Agency
This recent observation of red sprites was reminiscent of Mogensen's first mission to the ISS eight years ago, when he captured images of a different thunder event known as a blue jet. "This brings back memories of the blue jet I caught on camera on my first mission in 2015," he noted.