Earth monitors recorded explosions on Columbia

Experts won't say if infrasound readings coincide with 'electrical zap' on camera

As NASA continues its probe into the precise cause of the space shuttle Columbia disaster, government researchers are confirming the recording of explosions as the orbiter broke apart during its fatal descent.

According to a report in the Toledo Blade, some scientists believe the recordings could shed light on the theory that an electrical phenomenon called a "blue jet" knocked the shuttle out of the sky.

"We have detected sounds from shuttle re-entries in the past," Dr. Alfred Bedard Jr. of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said when asked about the content of infrasound recordings from Columbia. "But we've been asked not to discuss the results publicly, and we will honor that request."

Bedard, part of a panel of scientists who reported on infrasound research at the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver, says the recordings have now been sent to NASA for analysis.

While the human ear can hear sounds with a frequency of 20 to 20,000 Hertz, or cycles per second, infrasound is below 20 Hz.

Bedard has used infrasound sensor arrays stationed in Colorado to listen for mysterious electrical discharge events in the upper atmosphere.

The Blade reports pilots and amateur astronomers have reported glimpsing the phenomenon for years, but the lack of scientific confirmation led to terms such as "elves," "sprites," "sprite halos," "blue jets," and even "trolls."

Such discharges have since been verified, and are now known as Transient Luminous Events, taking place above thunderstorms and lightning strikes.

In 1989, an electrical strike destroyed a high-altitude NASA balloon 129,000 feet over Dallas, according to the Blade, and scientists suspect a TLE – perhaps a lightning bolt – leaped from a thunderhead anvil to the balloon.

As WorldNetDaily previously reported, NASA is now examining a photo taken by an astronomer in San Francisco that shows what could be an electrical phenomenon zapping Columbia just before it disintegrated.

Shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore has said that NASA continues to study the unreleased photograph, and Bedard wouldn't comment on whether his sensors heard evidence of a TLE coinciding with the demise of the orbiter.

A second infrasound expert, Dr. Eugene Herrin of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said his sensors also detected explosions on Columbia. His infrasound array for the U.S. Air Force is located near Terlingua, Texas.

In six minutes of recordings from Columbia, Herrin describes seven large, distinct explosions that were initially heard over eastern New Mexico.

He says a preliminary look at data collected by another array of instruments outside Mina, Nev., show "unusual" patterns when compared to data from other shuttle flights.

"There was something about this one. I am not going to speculate. What we see are oscillations in the shock wave that we don't normally see. Whether that's diagnostic or not, that's a NASA call," Herrin said.

The last voice communication from the shuttle crew came as Columbia streaked across New Mexico before breaking apart two minutes later.

Searchers spent yesterday scouring New Mexico's Embudito Canyon looking for any debris that may have fallen in the region after residents reported hearing "a whooshing sound like something falling out of the sky."

"I was in my backyard at around 7:05 a.m. [on Feb. 1]," said Dave Baldwin, a Northeast Heights resident, in an e-mail to the Albuquerque Tribune. "I heard what I believed at the time to be a sonic boom with a faint echo. I did not see anything associated with the sound."

"When you hear something, you can usually tell which direction you heard it from and factor in how far sound will travel and how far someone might have heard a noise like that," said Department of Public Safety spokesman Peter Olson.

No remnants of Columbia turned up in the search, as some pieces of metal turned out to be parts of a beer can and sardine container.

Red Sprites, Blue Jets and Elves

In addition to their well known effects in the troposphere, large cloud-to-ground lightning discharges produce several kinds of lesser known effects on the middle and upper atmosphere.

Red sprites, blue jets and elves are upper atmospheric optical phenomena associated with thunderstorms that have only recently been documented by using low light level television technology. These phenomena are collectively called Transient Luminous Events (TLE's)

Transient Luminous Events

Red sprites are large but weak luminous flashes that appear directly above an active thunderstorm system and are coincident with powerful positive cloud-to-ground lightning strokes. Their spatial structures range from small single or multiple vertically elongated spots, to bright groupings which extend from above the cloud tops to altitudes up to almost 60 miles (about 95 km. Sprites are predominantly red and they usually last no more than a few milliseconds. The brightest region lies in the altitude range 40 to 45 miles (about 65-75 km), above which there is often a faint red glow or wispy structure that extends to about 55 miles (90 km). Below the bright red region, blue tendril-like filamentary structures often extend downward to as low as 20 miles (30 km). Some events are loosely packed and may extend across horizontal distances of 30 miles (50 km) or more. Because of their low surface brightness, they have only been imaged at night (primarily with highly sensitive cameras). However, if ones eyes are sufficiently dark-adapted, one can actually detect them without any visual aid. The first images of a sprite were accidently obtained in 1989, although anecdotal reports of "rocket-like" and other optical emissions above thunderstorms go back more than a century. Early research reports for these events referred to them by a variety of names, including "upward lightning," "upward discharges," "cloud-to-stratosphere discharges," and "cloud-to-ionosphere discharges." Now they are simply referred to as sprites, a whimsical term that evokes a sense of their fleeting nature, while at the same time remaining nonjudgemental about physical processes that have yet to be determined.

Blue jets are a second high altitude optical phenomenon, distinct from sprites and first documented in 1994 (although pilots had earlier reported similar sightings). Blue jets are optical ejections from the top of the electrically active core regions of thunderstorms, but not directly associated with cloud-to-ground lightning. Following their emergence from the top of the thundercloud, they typically propagate at about upward in narrow cones of about 15 degrees, fanning out and disappearing at heights of about 25-30 miles (40-50 km) with a lifetime of a couple of tenths of a second.

Elves are disk-shaped regions of luminosity, lasting less than a thousandth of a second, which occur high above energetic cloud-to-ground lightning of positive or negative polarity. Elves most likely result when an energetic electromagnetic pulse (EMP) propagates into the ionosphere. Though they can be accompanied by sprites, the causative mechanism is of an entirely different nature. Predicted to exist in the early 1990's and discovered in 1994, elves got their name as an acronym for Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency perturbations due to EMP Sources.

Sprite halos are even more recently discovered. They are diffuse disk shaped glows that apparently precede sprites and propagate downward from about 50 miles to 40 miles (85 to 70 km) altitude and last about a millisecond.

Trolls, also recently observed, resemble blue jets, but are red and seem to occur after tendrils of vigorous sprites extend downward toward the cloud tops.

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