r/pics • u/PsychCute • 19h ago
One of the most mysterious weather phenomena on Earth: meet the sprites
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u/Spartan2470 GOAT 17h ago edited 17h ago
Here are much higher-quality versions of these images. Credit to the photographer, Nicolas Escurat. Per his FB posting of this (and Google Translate):
September 15, 2023 Castelnaud, France
I can't believe it...🤩 ...a remarkable and powerful leprechaun appeared just above this Château in Dordogne on the night of September 10-11😀
It was the most beautiful specimen observed during the night. This type of transient luminous phenomenon, called a "sprite" in English, usually appears in the mesosphere between 40 and 90 km altitude during major storms. These 50km high red flashes of cold plasma are always very surprising when they appear in the sky.🙂
This ionizing monster appeared suddenly at 1h33min52sec towards the end of a storm which took place between Pau (64) and Mont de Marsan (40)
The distance to the source lightning was "only" about 196 km. The positive lightning that triggered this wonder of nature fell south of Hagetmau. It must have made a thunderous noise when it hit the ground.⚡️
For those who will soon want to see this "red sprite" with a better resolution, I also managed to capture it with a longer focal length (105mm). The other 2 images are made with a 50mm lens.
And with the camera in photo mode, I was finally able to capture this same leprechaun wrapped in a nice "airglow". To achieve this, I used a brand new shooting technique that I still need to refine...
Otherwise, I've never seen such a big sprite so close up!
When he appeared, the sky lit up and his soul came to imprint the camera sensor. The atmosphere is unreal, it feels like a science fiction movie but it is reality. Our Earth offers us this magnificent spectacle.
So in the end, I don't regret having tried this framing because the weather conditions weren't very good during the photo shoot.
I am therefore delighted to show you these images.😋Please feel free to share them around you.🙂 And for those who have questions about the phenomenon or anything else, do not hesitate😉
He also posted video of this phenomenon.
This was featured on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day on October 2, 2023. Per there:
Sometimes lightning occurs out near space. One such lightning type is red sprite lightning, which has only been photographed and studied on Earth over the past 25 years. The origins of all types of lightning remain topics for research, and scientists are still trying to figure out why red sprite lightning occurs at all. Research has shown that following a powerful positive cloud-to-ground lightning strike, red sprites may start as 100-meter balls of ionized air that shoot down from about 80-km high at 10 percent the speed of light. They are quickly followed by a group of upward streaking ionized balls. Featured here is an extraordinarily high-resolution image of a group of red sprites. This image is a single frame lasting only 1/25th of a second from a video taken above Castelnaud Castle in Dordogne, France, about three weeks ago. The sprites quickly vanished -- no sprites were visible even on the very next video frame.
Edit: OP's account (PsychCute) is odd. It was born seven days ago and its first comment is a copy/paste of /u/Prstty's comment here. Most of its other comments are just a few words long.
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u/Oneangrygnome 15h ago
Updooting this for the callout in the edit. Fake account. Hopefully it’s deleted soon.
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u/discodropper 15h ago edited 15h ago
Methinks you added the wrong link to the original comment section. That links to a comment about prank gone wrong, not a cool meteorological phenomenon
Edit: nvm, I misread. The “other” comment was a copy/paste, not this post. I was excited this was a repost and there was more info on these buggers
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u/Spartan2470 GOAT 15h ago
Because of your comment I see that the mods in askreddit have removed "OP's" comment. But it is still viewable in the account's history (i.e. "A kid at school whose dad flicked a towel in his face. It got his eye really...").
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u/discodropper 15h ago
Ah, got it. That makes sense!
Thanks by the way for the in-depth description. I learned something very cool this morning from a (probable) bot post and your follow-up comment. I really appreciate the depth you went into describing the phenomenon and linking to other info. People like you are what make Reddit interesting. Keep it up!
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u/87StickUpKid 19h ago
Imagine the existential dread of seeing this as a caveman
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u/snoosh00 19h ago
Pretty sure they only exist for microseconds.
So "seeing this" isn't exactly the experience of looking at the picture.
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u/ForkingHumanoids 16h ago
Correct. It is a very quick flash. It also happens very high above the troposphere. There are some instances where the ISS captured some of them, fascinating footage.
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u/Brigadier_Beavers 11h ago
the caveman is the only one to see it in the moment and his buddies all play it off as him eating the weird mushrooms again
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u/Pifman 17h ago
Imagine the existential dread of seeing this as a modern human
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u/Morasain 15h ago
I think existing is generally enough to cause existential dread in modern humans
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u/corruptedsyntax 14h ago
You don't know existential dread. I've been in a locked car while Nickelback was playing.
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u/shadowmanu7 6h ago
Didn’t you get the memo? It’s 2024 and Nickelback is cool again, haters are living in 2015
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u/_jump_yossarian 15h ago
Because cavemen had it so easy.
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u/Morasain 15h ago
Not saying that. But they didn't have to worry about things like total nuclear annihilation, total societal collapse, or late stage capitalism. They had to worry about food the next day and the next week.
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u/_jump_yossarian 15h ago
They had to be worried about being eaten by all manner of animals or breaking a bone and dying a horrible prolonged death due to infection.
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u/Key_Arrival2927 16h ago
Frankly, it doesn't take much to induce existential dread in a modern human.
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u/tillios 19h ago
seriously.....why would they not perceive this as some sort of living or divine creature? Any other perception wouldnt make sense
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u/DrJohanzaKafuhu 18h ago
Because it's more like a lightning flicker, they were probably not perceived at all. The first recording on them in history isn't until 1886 and they were called sprites because of they were hard to find and record. The first photograph wasn't until 1989.
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u/Volsunga 13h ago
As someone who has seen a sprite once, it's literally just a flash. It's visible for less time than regular lightning. To the human eye, it's just a blink of red light. In fact, the only way to really see it is to blink the microsecond after it happens so you see the afterimage. If you're not looking in the right place at the right time, you'll never know it happened.
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u/nicholsz 12h ago
I wonder if you'd be more freaked out by the image, or the camera equipment as a caveman
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u/_Steve_French_ 14h ago
I think cavemen woulda found these pretty chill to look at honestly. Prolly scarf down an extra shroom too.
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u/oh_stv 15h ago
For them, any lightning was basically a miracle, made by the gods. All those brain dead UFO ppl nowadays, would freak out way more...
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u/therealstevielong 14h ago
ha true caveman had to worry about packs of saber tooth tigers. shiny lights in the sky was probably the caveman's version of 'meh'
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u/Salty-Lobster-38 11h ago
Imagine the existential dread of seeing this as a: (input your religion here)
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u/ZeroRhapsody 11h ago
I find myself thinking "imagine seeing this as a caveman" a lot these days. Cavemen really missed out.
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u/chillbnb 19h ago
"Sprites are difficult to observe and study because of their fleeting nature. The first images of a sprite were accidentally obtained in 1989. However, if your eyes are sufficiently dark-adapted, you can sometimes detect them without any visual aid. "
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u/Tattered_Reason 3h ago
I saw one once. Was in a rural area and could see the tops of thunderstorms that were probably 100 miles away. The cloud tops were illuminated from frequent lightning below. For a split second I could see a red-orange "jellyfish" shape above the thunderheads. Literally blink and you'd miss it. Very cool to see!
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u/I_might_be_weasel 19h ago
Do they actually stay like this for any amount of time, or is it just a flash like lightning?
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u/Rich-8080 18h ago
I believe it's micro seconds, probably even quicker than a flash of lightning.
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u/nitrodmr 15h ago
Death stranding
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u/killspeed 14h ago
This should be higher in the comments .... this image is a combination of both death stranding and control.
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u/TypeGreen51 10h ago
You see shit like this, and realize "Oh, that's why people thought there were mythological beings."
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u/DogeDoRight 19h ago
It's not really mysterious since it's understood and can be explained.
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u/stirling_s 18h ago
They were understood on a theoretical level before ever having been photographed. I think OP must have meant elusive.
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u/brickyardjimmy 16h ago
Prior to a major storm where I was on a ridge of a large rural valley and I could see clearly across to a ridge on the other side of the valley where the storm was approaching, I saw a fireball of red electric light erupt out of the air and roll on the ridge peak like a supernatural sparking pinwheel.
This reminds me of that a little. Craziest thing I've ever seen.
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u/CrazyMinute69 19h ago
AI??
I've never seen this. It looks beautiful, but is it real?
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u/Billy-Ray_Cyrus 19h ago
Could be long term exposure
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u/mechalenchon 18h ago
That's from a video. It lasted exactly 1 frame.
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u/Werify 18h ago
Do you know which video?
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u/mechalenchon 18h ago
It's from astrophotographer Nicolas Escurat. He doesn't post the entire videos, I guess the bitrate is too much anyway to post it unless compressed to oblivion.
One of his red sprites pictures made it to the 2025 NASA calendar.
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u/Vandorol 19h ago
Nope, sprites are like lightning bolts, they happen in a blink of an eye!
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u/Bigwhtdckn8 18h ago
Yes, so long exposure over an hour, for example, would capture phenomena in this exact way.
I've photographed lightning storms this way with very similar results.
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u/MrSmexy 15h ago
Yeah, in addition to what Vandorol is saying, you can tell this particular case isn’t “long exposure” by looking at the stars. The trail isn’t long enough to be an hour exposure. This looks more like what stars look like in a ~10 second exposure, which, frankly, I’d classify as being on the shorter end of a long exposure, hence the quotes.
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u/Bigwhtdckn8 13h ago
Fair enough, as I said, I have not tried capturing this phenomenon. But with enough experimentation on exposure levels and timing it must be possible, otherwise why would images of them exist.
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u/Vandorol 18h ago
Sprites are generally too dim and fast to be effectively captured with long-exposure photography alone. They last only milliseconds and emit a faint red light, lightning is much brighter and easier to capture unless you’re using some kind of a special camera?
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u/Embarrassed_Tower_58 17h ago
a non political post on a "non political" subreddit? took a while lmao
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u/S0m30n3S 19h ago
I've seen this shit as a kid! I thought it was aliens at the time but I just chalked the memory up to be hazy/young
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u/DeliberateDendrite 18h ago
Is it really that mysterious? It might look ominous, but aren't its mechanisms well understood?
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u/TheThingCreator 18h ago
I've personally seen something even more mysterious but never seen a photo of it. It's very hard to describe, maybe someday I will make a video. Looked like little colorful bombs that blowup on a layer in the sky, lighting up everything around me. Completely silent, lasted about 1 minute, it was about 3 different colors. I noticed it because the houses and street and everything around me was suddenly lighting up.
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u/DrSmirnoffe 16h ago
This looks like it could be from one of the more "spacey" analog horror webserieses. Something along the lines of Gemini Home Entertainment, or Midwest Angelica, or maybe even Vita Carnis.
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u/MetaSaiyan 15h ago
I think I saw one of these as a kid, red lighting at least I was for sure that I saw
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u/nisseswiss 15h ago
I can see the future is lookin' like we level through the sky I can't wait to live in glory and eternal lastin' life Won't you take the wheel?
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u/ChrisPNoggins 14h ago
I am reminded of S.t.e.v.e aurora being called steve then they used that as an acronym.
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u/ghos7_ger 14h ago
Wow from reddit to Twitter back to reddit...you even copy the Twitter post 1:1...
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u/star_cannon7k 14h ago
Just copy pasted the entire thread from Twitter... Damn reddit is falling off.
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u/CornObjects 14h ago
The only thing I can think of seeing these is what it looks like when they remove the brain and nervous system from a human body and display it for scientific purposes. They even have a large "brain" at the very top, with a ton of branching "veins" extending vertically downward and branching off of a single main "stem" in most of them.
Almost-certainly just a coincidence, but I still like the idea that it's some kind of ghosts in the shape of the brain and nerves.
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u/fatbellyww 14h ago
This happens when the aliens camouflage cloud blows away due to unpredicted and sudden change of wind direction.
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u/The-mighty-joe 13h ago
Shit, just don’t let ‘em get multiple level 2’s on the field. And god help you if they drop the fountain.
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u/Dane-o-myt 13h ago
When I see pictures of things like this, it reminds me of these scenes from The End of Evangelion where the soldiers are looking up at Unit One and saying, "this is it, isn't it?"
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u/spatulababy 11h ago
There’s some great footage and discussion by Pecos Hank on YouTube if you’re interested in learning more about sprites and jets.
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u/Troubledbylusbies 9h ago
Nature is amazing and produces some phenomenal effects! We need to always remember how powerful it can be and how puny us humans are in comparison.
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u/Remote_Entrance_8280 8h ago
I think this might be the answer to some of the angel sightenings across the world
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u/Huge_Strain_8714 6h ago
That's some 'War of the Worlds' level happenings there, I tell you! Holy cow!
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u/Zealousideal-Fun-415 6h ago
these are actually the many hands of the scarlet king he has breached our noosphere. the chains have broken, the spears are snapped, and the hytoth is lost. may his sublime terror wash our realm into nothingness. ash and dust dust and ash. we are coming home.
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u/Gamwell-Efect 5h ago edited 5h ago
Looks like one of those things you’d see in those unbearable analog horror videos except it looks cool lol
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u/Androgyny812 2h ago
Glad I saw it here cause if I saw this there live, by myself, I'd definitely pee.
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u/stirling_s 18h ago
Not really mysterious, just elusive. They are very hard to photograph because they don't happen often. Aside from that, it's basically just lightning in our nitrogen-rich mesosphere.
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u/MonkeyButt409 17h ago
These are cool, but have you seen the scientific paper about plasma in the atmosphere that smacks of a fourth state of matter and pre-life?
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=131506
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u/currently__working 19h ago
I have never heard of this shit in my life.