¿ Astronomy Picture of the Day [1]Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2021 March 30 [2]Several red sprite lightning plumes are pictured over the Andes Mountains. See Explanation. Red Sprite Lightning over the Andes Image Credit & Copyright: [3]Yuri Beletsky ([4]Carnegie [5]Las Campanas Observatory, [6]TWAN) Explanation: What are those red filaments in the sky? They are a rarely seen form of lightning confirmed only about 30 years ago: [7]red sprites. Recent research has shown that following a powerful positive [8]cloud-to-ground lightning strike, [9]red sprites may start as 100-meter balls of [10]ionized air that shoot down from about 80-km high at 10 percent the [11]speed of light. They are [12]quickly followed by a group of upward streaking ionized balls. The [13]featured image was taken earlier this year from [14]Las Campanas observatory in [15]Chile over the [16]Andes Mountains in [17]Argentina. [18]Red sprites take only a [19]fraction of a second to occur and are best seen when [20]powerful thunderstorms are visible from the side. APOD via Instagram in: [21]English, [22]Indonesian, [23]Persian, and [24]Portuguese Tomorrow's picture: black hole polarized __________________________________________________________________ [25]< | [26]Archive | [27]Submissions | [28]Index | [29]Search | [30]Calendar | [31]RSS | [32]Education | [33]About APOD | [34]Discuss | [35]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [36]Robert Nemiroff ([37]MTU) & [38]Jerry Bonnell ([39]UMCP) NASA Official: Phillip Newman [40]Specific rights apply. [41]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: [42]ASD at [43]NASA / [44]GSFC & [45]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2103/sprites_beletsky_960.jpg 3. https://www.instagram.com/yuribeletsky/ 4. http://carnegiescience.edu/ 5. http://www.lco.cl/ 6. https://twanight.org/about/ 7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_sprite 8. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120723.html 9. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120829.html 10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionized-air_glow 11. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/three-ways-to-travel-at-nearly-the-speed-of-light 12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATmpgZoMRM0 13. https://www.instagram.com/p/B7GbaUhJWAh/ 14. http://www.lco.cl/?page_id=233 15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile 16. https://youtu.be/LUyJHG2u5DM 17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina 18. https://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/space/AtmosElec/spriteinfo.html 19. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210104.html 20. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130505.html 21. https://www.instagram.com/astronomypicturesdaily/ 22. https://www.instagram.com/apod.id/ 23. https://www.instagram.com/avastarapod/ 24. https://www.instagram.com/apodbrasil/ 25. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210327.html 26. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 27. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 28. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 29. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 30. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 31. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss 32. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 33. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 34. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=210328 35. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210329.html 36. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 37. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 38. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 39. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 40. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 41. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 42. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 43. https://www.nasa.gov/ 44. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 45. http://www.mtu.edu/