Tag: Lightning
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Firefly Alpha FLTA007 “Stairway to Seven” launches successfully
Firefly Aerospace returned its Alpha launch vehicle to flight after a nearly 10-month stand down following the failed FLTA006 “Message In A Booster” mission in April 2025. FLTA007 “Stairway to Seven” launched from the California coast at 5:50 PM PDT on Wednesday, March 11 (00:50 UTC on March 12) after being delayed again on Monday,…
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Juno and the case of Jupiter’s missing ammonia
NASA’s Juno spacecraft, the agency’s flagship mission to Jupiter, continues to stream back an incredible amount of scientific data about the largest planet in our solar system just over four years after arriving in orbit. Some of the most recent discoveries pertain to lightning in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, called “shallow lightning,” as well as indications…
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Firefly’s commercial satellite launcher to use Delta 2 pad at Vandenberg
File photo of a Delta 2 rocket at Space Launch Complex 2-West at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Credit: United Launch Alliance A commercial rocket under development by Firefly Aerospace will conduct its first orbital test flight in 2019 from a launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California that will become vacant with…
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Lightning mapper beams back first views from space
A sensitive infrared camera mounted on NOAA’s new GOES-16 weather satellite has captured its first astounding images of lightning flashes from a perch more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) out in space. The first-of-its-kind imager can detect in-cloud, cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, giving weather forecasters an inventory of the location, frequency and intensity…
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Blue lightning caught on video from space
An image captured from the International Space Station shows an electrical discharge known as a blue jet shooting up toward space from a cloud. (ESA / NASA Photo / Andreas Mogensen) For years, scientists have been piecing together evidence of peculiar phenomena known as red sprites, blue jets, pixies and elves – exotic types of electrical discharges…