A mysterious phenomenon captured by the International Space Station

AstronautEuropean Space Agency Andreas Mogensen Pictures taken of a wonderful and mysterious phenomenon station spaceas part of the experiment Thor Davis As part of Huginn’s mission. Every Saturday, the astronaut used the International Space Station’s camera, attached a Davis camera to it, and then headed to the dome to observe thunderstorms on Earth. The first image is now available.

Mogensen managed to cut one off Goblins reda phenomenon called A transient flare occurred (TLE), which occurs above thunderclouds, between 40 and 80 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. Scientists estimate the size of the red goblin at about 14 x 26 km. Because red sprites form above storm clouds, they cannot be easily studied from Earth and are therefore primarily observed from space, including using the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) located outside the atmosphere. Space station.

The lightning bolt and the red goblin that can be seen from the space station

The Davis Camera is an event camera, which works more like a human eye, detecting a change in contrast rather than taking an image like a regular camera. The power consumption of the event camera is very low, on the order of a few watts, despite its ability to capture the equivalent of 100,000 images per second. The speed of the camera is evident from the video below, where you can see the lightning strike at the bottom and then the shape of the red goblin at the top.

“These photos by Andreas are amazing. Davis’s camera works well and gives us the high temporal resolution needed to capture fast lightning events.“He announced Olivier ChanrionChief Scientist of this experiment and Chief Researcher at DTU Space.

Thor-Davis experiment

to’Thor-Davis experiment Study i Lightning in the upper atmosphere and how it can affect the concentration of greenhouse gases. It builds on previous Thor experience from Mogensen’s first mission in 2015, when it also took images of a different event,”Blue planeThe experiment was conducted by the Danish Technical University (DTU) in cooperation with the European Space Agency.