Huge elf over Russia

16 Aug high above the storm in the night sky in Central Russia there was a huge ring light. With a camera that can shoot in low-light conditions, Amateur astronomer Elijah Jankowski from the city of Irbit has a picture of a huge 300-kilometer halo, as if hovering on the edge of space.

Jankowski noted that it appeared only for a split second, surrounding the "bull horns" — the beta star of the Taurus.

In fact, this is the elf (Elve, Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations from Electromagnetic Pulse Sources). This is a huge, but little flashes of light-cones with a diameter of about 400 km, emerging directly from the top of cumulonimbus clouds. The height of the elves can reach 100 km, the duration of the flash — up to 5 MS, but the average is about 3 MS.

First recorded by cameras on the space Shuttle in 1990, the elves appear, when a pulse of electromagnetic radiation from lightning "cloud — the earth" extends up to space and hits the Earth's ionosphere. A faint ring of dark red light noticed a wide spot, where does the momentum.

Oscar van der Velde of the research group for the study of lightning of the Catalan Polytechnic University said that in order for this to happen, the lightning need to be very strong — 150-350 kiloamperes. For comparison: "normal" lightning "cloud — the earth" reach 10-30 kiloamperes.

Elves often appear with the red sprites. Indeed, the camera Jankowski filmed at least two clusters of dancing a number of sprites.
Elves are elusive — and that's an understatement. Their existence lasts only a millisecond, they are completely invisible to the human eye. For comparison: red sprites typically last for hundredths of a second, and the usual lightning may flare up for a second or more. Their brevity explains why elves are a recent discovery in comparison with other associated with lightning.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»