Space Shuttle Columbia Crew Studies Sprites and Elves

AP ^ | January 20, 2003

[Shermy]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Sprites and elves dancing on thunder clouds have been captured by cameras on the space shuttle Columbia.

The sprites, which are red flashes of electricity shooting up from thunderclouds 13 miles (20 km) into the ionosphere, and elves, which are glowing red doughnut shapes radiating 190 miles (300 km), were photographed Sunday by astronaut Dave Brown on the sprite hunt's first orbit.

Columbia and a crew of seven astronauts are on a 16-day science mission that began Thursday. The study of sprites is part of an Israeli experiment known as MEIDEX that includes the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon.

"This is the first time (we've successfully taken) such images with a calibrated instrument from the shuttle and it's causing really great excitement with our colleagues around the world," said Yoav Yair, project coordinator for Israeli experiments on the shuttle science mission.

Yair said Brown did not see the luminosities or know that he had captured their images until scientists on the ground downloaded and analysed the pictures.

"One has to be extremely lucky to catch one because it lasts only 0.1 milliseconds -- less than a thousandth of a second," Yair said. "Luckily, God was on our side this time and we caught one."

The discovery of sprites in 1989 and elves in 1994 has opened up a new area of study in the field of upper atmospheric physics. Until now, images of them have been limited to those taken from the ground or aeroplanes.

The shuttle cameras that captured the flashes are onboard primarily to facilitate the Israeli's Mediterranean-Israeli dust experiment (MEIDEX) designed to study the impact of dust particles on global climate.

Zev Levin, of Tel Aviv University, who heads up the Israeli experiments, which were originally scheduled to fly in July 2001 but have been delayed by technical and scheduling problems, said that winter is the worst time to be searching for dust storms in the Mediterranean.

Levin said the team has not yet encountered any dust storms and is instead following plumes of pollutants from Europe wafting over the study area.

All in all, Yair said, Israeli scientists are "having a great time working with NASA (news - web sites) around the clock and getting good scientific data and already exceeding our, I would say, wildest expectations of getting science from this mission."

[Shermy]

This January 20, 2003 story for discussion in light of:

S.F. man's astounding photo Mysterious purple streak is shown hitting Columbia (Feb. 5)

Boot Hill and Sabertooth first suggested sprites in the thread. I remembered Blam's thread about this shuttle actually investigating sprites.

Blam's January 21 thread:

Shuttle Mission Zooms In On Electrifying Data ("Elfs")

[Shermy]

Lightning ping.

[Shermy]

Red Sprites and Blue Jets

[glock rocks]

bumping for post-work/pre-beer reading. interesting stuff, this physics.

[aristeides]

It was for experiments like these that seven astronauts risked their lives?

[egarvue]

Sheesh...throughout history, many advances in science were begun by "experiments like these". I'm just glad that our forbears didn't share your aversion to risk, otherwise we all might still be huddled in our caves, still trying to figure out how to appease the Thunder Spirits that we may eat tomorrow.

[Mamzelle]

The space program didn't bring us Beeno.

[Boundless]

> It was for experiments like these that seven astronauts risked their lives?

There's a very remote chance that one of these struck the Columbia at exactly the time things started going seriously amiss.

If so, that's a previously unknown hazard to spaceflight.

[dasboot]

Coulda been a metiorite. Or an elf. Or gremlins ripping at the wings. Apply the razor.

[egarvue]

You are correct, Beano (sometimes mispelled Beeno), the anti-fart enzyme supplement, was probably not derived from technology invented for the space program. But otherwise, the most cursory search of the web will show that yes indeed, many technologies we use in our daily life were either invented or further refined in our space program. Check out Space Tech Hall of Fame for just a small listing. Educate yourself, and then come back here and say that the space program hasn't done anything to improve the quality of our lives.

[Boot Hill]

Thanks for the credit (although Sabertooth's post had far more info than mine).

It will be real interesting to see what NASA makes out of the photos that CA astronomer captured. Part of the problem for them will be the dearth of knowledge about sprites, jets and elves. All the speculation about damaged tiles might just turn out to be a blind alley.

--Boot Hill

[Mamzelle]

You were the one to bring up the Thunder Spirits.

[egarvue]

You can also look at NASA Commercial Technology Network for a lot more info on the spinoff of NASA-developed tech. Check out the "Success Stories" section.

[egarvue]

LOL! Sorry, I was slow on the uptake, I thought you were dissing the space program. I humbly apologize. Now, where's my bowl of chilli.......

[dljordan]

Oh no, just all kinds of tech that we use everyday. Teflon?

[TomServo]

Or gremlins ripping at the wings.

Ahhh - Another TZ Fan....I thought the remake was better than the original.

[Boundless]

> Coulda been a metiorite. Or an elf. Or gremlins ripping at the wings. Apply the razor.

Occam tells us to not ignore this entirely. But until the guy releases the photos to the press, all is speculation.

As I said in another forum, just because there's a smoking gun (the foam FOD at launch) doesn't mean we have the answer and can stop looking.

[Gary Boldwater]

Don't forget the high school science projects.

[Gary Boldwater]

Teflon invented in the 1940's.