Image: ISS-44 Red Sprites, northwest Mexico
Size of this preview: 800 × 532 pixels. Other resolutions: 320 × 213 pixels | 4,928 × 3,280 pixels.
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Description: A red sprite above the white light of an active thunderstorm (image top left)...
Sprites are major electrical discharges, but they are not lightning in the usual sense. Instead, they are a cold plasma phenomenon without the extremely hot temperatures of lightning that we see underneath thunderstorms. Red sprites are more like the discharge of a fluorescent tube. Bursts of sprite energy are thought to occur during most large thunderstorm events....
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