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APOD: 2025 December 23 Á Red Sprites and Circular Elves Lightning over Italy
| << Yesterday | 23.12.2025 | Tomorrow >> |
Credit & Copyright: Valter Binotto
Explanation:
What's happening in the sky?
Lightning.
The most commonly seen type of
lightning involves flashes of
bright white light between clouds.
Over the past 50 years, though, other
types of upper-atmospheric lightning have been confirmed,
including tentacled red
sprites and ringed
ELVES.
Although both last only a small fraction of a second,
sprites are brighter and easier to photograph
than their more common
electrical-discharge cousins.
ELVES
are rapidly expanding rings that are thought to be created when an
electromagnetic pulse shoots upward from charged clouds and impacts the
ionosphere, causing
nitrogen molecules to glow.
Capturing either form of lightning takes patience and experience --
capturing them
both together, since they usually occur separately, is rare.
The
featured image
is a frame from a video recorded from
Possagno,
Italy
late last month above a distant
thunderstorm over the
Adriatic Sea.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: lightning
Publications with words: lightning
See also:
- APOD: 2025 December 16 Á Andromeda and Sprites over Australia
- APOD: 2025 September 9 Á Up from the Earth: Gigantic Jet Lightning
- APOD: 2025 July 27 Á Lightning over the Volcano of Water
- APOD: 2024 August 13 Á Giant Jet from the International Space Station
- APOD: 2024 June 18 Á Gigantic Jets over Himalayan Mountains
- APOD: 2023 October 2 Á Sprite Lightning in High Definition
- APOD: 2023 September 18 Á The Red Sprite and the Tree