Ural astronomer captured on video giant red lightning, beating up

Ilya Yankovsky, an astronomer from the Sverdlovsk region, captured a video of a rare natural phenomenon – giant red lightning, called sprites, shooting up.

The recording of an unusual natural phenomenon was carried out in the accelerated shooting mode, which allowed the researcher to study it in more detail. On the basis of the received frames, the man edited the video.

The Amateur astronomer said that sprites were discovered and described in detail in 1989 by scientist John Winkler. Yankovsky believes that red lightning occurred due to the climatic features of these places and the presence of heavy precipitation.

Sprites appear at an altitude of 50 to 130 kilometers and strike towards the ionosphere. Severe thunderstorms are necessary for their appearance. Bright red discharges appear (usually in groups) a fraction of a second after a normal lightning strike.

The nature of sprites is still poorly understood. They quickly appear and also quickly disappear. At the end of the last century, pilots occasionally reported bright columns in the upper atmosphere, but scientists did not really believe them and equated the stories of pilots with reports of UFOs.