Articles for tag: Atmospheric Science, Meteorology, red lightning, sprites, upper atmosphere

The Science Behind Red Lightning - A Rare Upper-Atmosphere Phenomenon

The Science Behind Red Lightning – A Rare Upper-Atmosphere Phenomenon

Jan Otte

You might think lightning only strikes downward from cloud to ground, but some storms produce an entirely different kind of electrical display. High above our heads, far beyond where commercial aircraft fly, mysterious red flashes dance across the night sky for barely a millisecond. These crimson apparitions have puzzled observers for over a century, yet ...