There has been a lot of talk this week about a rare atmospheric phenomenon, known as a ‘sprite’, occurring over Ireland, but we want to know what exactly happened.
You may have heard about the ‘sprite’ that was spotted by the Armagh Observatory earlier in the week. At first we thought it was just some sort of clever marketing campaign by a certain ‘lemon and lime flavoured soft drink’, but it turns out that it was actually a rare lightening strike.
So what exactly was it? Here’s what the Armagh Observatory had to say, “Unlike common lightning discharges, which often jump between clouds or between the clouds and the ground, sprites are associated with similarly powerful electrical fields that occur high above the clouds of the Earth’s atmosphere.”
“Sprites are observed at typical heights ranging from around 50 to 100 kilometres, in the so-called ‘middle’ part of the Earth’s atmosphere known as the mesosphere. This is the region sandwiched between the stratosphere and the much more tenuous thermosphere, which ultimately merges into interplanetary space.”
Sprites are typically red in colour and hard to see with the naked eye, but thanks to some special hi-tech cameras the guys at the Armagh Observatory managed to capture the ‘carrot shaped’ sprite on film.
Surprisingly, sprites were only discovered in the 1980’s so their detection is relatively new. According to the Armagh Observatory website, “The Armagh Observatory’s video recording is one of the very few sprite detections on video footage from the UK and Ireland.
“Apart from being extraordinary and awesome to behold, the relatively recent discovery of sprites reminds us that the Earth’s upper atmosphere remains a mystery, with a lot still to be learned about the environment of our own planet.”
Pretty interesting if you ask us… If you want to find out more about the rare atmospheric phenomenon that is a sprite and to see the actual video footage of the event, check out the Armagh Observatory website here.
