{"id":19079,"date":"2017-02-08T20:46:24","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T12:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/blue-lightning-caught-on-video-from-space\/"},"modified":"2017-02-08T20:46:24","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T12:46:24","slug":"blue-lightning-caught-on-video-from-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/blue-lightning-caught-on-video-from-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue lightning caught on video from space"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_309124\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-309124\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-309124\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/170208-bluejet-630x426.jpg\" alt=\"Blue jet\" width=\"630\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/170208-bluejet-630x426.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/170208-bluejet-768x519.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/170208-bluejet.jpg 826w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-309124\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">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)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For years, scientists have been piecing together evidence of peculiar phenomena&nbsp;known as red sprites, blue jets, pixies and elves&nbsp;\u2013 exotic types of electrical discharges that emanate from thunderstorms.<\/p>\n<p>Just one week after his arrival on the International Space Station, Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen captured the best evidence that blue jets exist. Mogensen\u2019s 160-second video documented 245 blue flashes as&nbsp;the space station flew 250 miles above the Bay of Bengal.<\/p>\n<p>Now the findings have been published in Geophysical Research Letters. \u201cAccording to the researchers, this is the first time they\u2019ve ever seen this blue lightning shoot up like that,\u201d Mogensen said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Red sprites and blue jets\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QZSfe41W3XQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The video also shows a spidery tangle of red sprites flashing upward from the clouds. Satellites have documented such phenomena before, but Mogensen had much better view of the discharges.<\/p>\n<p>Close study of the discharges, known as transient luminous events, could help scientists understand more fully how the atmosphere serves as a shield against space radiation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is not every day that you get to capture a new weather phenomenon on film, so I am very pleased with the result \u2013 but even more so that researchers will be able to investigate these intriguing thunderstorms in more detail soon,\u201d Mogensen said today in a report from the European Space Agency.<\/p>\n<p>Mogensen is referring to the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor,&nbsp;or ASIM, an ESA experiment that\u2019s slated for installation on the exterior of the space station\u2019s Columbus module later this year.<\/p>\n<p>ASIM\u2019s primary mission is to monitor thunderstorms continuously&nbsp;for transient luminous events \u2013 and watch for even more mysterious gamma ray flashes that have been detected in the upper atmosphere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&nbsp;known as red sprites, blue jets, pixies and elves&nbsp;\u2013 exotic types of electrical discharges [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[246,717,2971,650],"class_list":["post-19079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-esa","tag-international-space-station","tag-lightning","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19079"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}