Amateur astronomer filmed, perhaps a new kind of sprite

Thirty years ago, many researchers did not believe that the glow in the upper atmosphere exist. But in 1989, researchers from the University of Minnesota shot this phenomenon on video.

Now there are a collection of the forms of atmospheric glow: sprites, elves, gigantic jets, elves. These short-lived luminous phenomena appear above storm clouds, rushing to the space, not down towards the ground as normal lightning.

14 August 2017 Amateur astronomer Thomas Eshkraft may have noticed a new kind of sprite. "I was photographing the cluster of sprites over a storm in Western Oklahoma when something is bent flew up behind the main cluster". This strange form is clearly visible on the frame cut from the video.

What is it? Experts do not have the exact answer.

The researcher zips Oscar van Der Velde from the Technical University of Catalonia says it's a Troll — the type of glow that sometimes appears under the sprites, squirming under illuminated clusters.

"I've seen a lot of trolls, says van der Velde, But never such a strange, wavy. It really is a exceptional spectacle."

Jozsef Bor of the Geodetic and geophysical research Institute in Hungary believe that it could be a giant jet. Giant jets is sprites on steroids, powerful and bright. "The working hypothesis is this: first there were red sprites in a photo, creating a cloud of positive charge on a storm cloud. They were followed by the giant jet, also positively charged. He was forced to circumnavigate the cloud of positive charge on its way to the top."

Or it could be something unprecedented.

"Even after almost 30 years of observing sprites, we still find something new, says Walter Lyons, a former President of the American meteorological society and a longtime observer of the sprites. Over the years I've seen thousands of sprites, but only a few curved formations, like this. So it's a pretty rare phenomenon."

"I don't know how to call them, says Eshkraft, which regularly monitors the sky from his private Observatory in new Mexico for the presence of strange phenomena, But I'm going to look at both in search of new phenomena".

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»