A NASA astronaut which is on board the International Space Station managed to take a photo of an “elf”, a rare light phenomenon that occurs above the clouds. We explain to you.
While flying over Mexico and the United States from space, the American astronaut Nichole Ayers has witnessed a spritea red flash resembling plant roots sometimes called “elf” or “farfadet”.
It is roughly a high altitude flash-belonging to the family ephemeral luminous phenomena (Ple)-which lasts a fraction of a second and which occurs in the Mesosphere at around 40 to 80 km above sea level, above a powerful cloud of thunder.
When a flash occurs between the earth and the cloud, it can transport a good amount of negative load to the cloud. This whole negative charge contrasts the positive load of the ionosphere. Imbalance can therefore create an electric discharge and generate a sprite.
A great mystery
Several aspects of these phenomena discovered by chance in 1989 nevertheless remain mysterious. Scientists try to know more about their training, their characteristics and their relationship with thunderstorms.
NASA, which published the photo of Nichole Ayers, argued that the observations of astronauts and the instruments that are on board the international space station “can help us better understand the behavior of storms”.
Their analysis also makes it possible to learn more about the mesosphere, difficult to study.
Inspired by Shakespeare
They are called elves because they are rare and unpredictable, a bit like the playful fairies of Shakespeare’s play The dream of a summer night. The names of the other types of transient light phenomena also followed this trend; We can therefore observe trolls, elves, ghosts and gnomes in the sky.
