[Phys-L] Red Sprites

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

Not too long ago, the very existence of sprites was controversial.
There were anecdotal reports of observations, and that's about it.

However .... Nowadays there are more than a few pictures of them,
which you can find by googling.  There are also youtube videos.

   https://www.google.com/search?q="red sprite"&tbm=isch&tbs=isz%3Al


Some nice examples of sprite pictures:

https://images.twnmm.com/c55i45ef3o2a/1NNnJJ7Qz60geoQWqZTx1p/99c4837fd14f9766fdc38bf12dc7b0a0/Red-Sprite-West-Texas-July22020-crop-StephenHummel.jpg

https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU2OTYxOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNjUwMjI0MH0.p6mgrzmvhw4_TZACe2zXGg26M3hhAg3Bxt6wGsviYx4/img.jpg

An accessible discussion of some open physics questions is here:
  https://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/space/AtmosElec/spriteinfo.html

=================

I mention it in this forum because it is an example of current physics that
students can more-or-less relate to.  You might think that lightning and
thunderstorms would have been figured out by now, but they haven't.

A useful resource is the Nova documentary "At the Edge of Space" previously
mentioned:
  https://www.phys-l.org/archives/2014/7_2014/msg00001.html

Including the epic 13-minute clip showing how science is done, now relocated
here:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSCwiQWzMa0

PBS/Nova page:
  https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/at-the-edge-of-space/