Incredible pic of Red Sprite Lightning

And the music is always that kind of synthetic, pseudo-dynamic'n'exciting shtick. It's such a cliché, but they feel they have to do it, to be hip and trendy news broadcasters, copying all the rest.

The music on radio documentaries is a new thing, creeping in over only the last couple of years. Some twit has got the idea that, because they use it on TV, to accompany pictures, they should also do the same on radio. But because there are no pictures, radio is a more strictly linear form of communication in which the speaker's voice is all the listener has. Anything that interrupts that wrecks the experience. It must be especially bad for people whose hearing is not 100%.

 

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Could you imagine music being played when the BBC was transmitting those spoken sentences to WW2 resistance fighters?
"Jack has pushed Jill down the well" " Jill has now punched Jack on the nose".
Probably the BBC news department now has its own music technician along side its sound technician. It creates employment.

 

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Totally fake.
Obviously the light from the underside of space ship in the foreground would light the area beneath it.
The space ship must have been a different sighting to the sprite.
Too easy, try again

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Damn!
The ships are using Daylight Bulbs.
You’re making the mistake of thinking that green tree and grass is reflecting real sunlight.

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Oh yes, I've no doubt the costs go up for this distracting musical embellishment. Perhaps there are even royalties to pay, if it is not synthesised.

 

This article from December 5th

https://phys.org/news/2023-12-red-sprites-space.html

 

The NASA video is quite interesting. However I note that neither the video nor the article has much to say about the mechanism behind these things.

 

I found this but I will access and read it when I am in work. I am on my tablet.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...PRITES_ELVES_AND_INTENSE_LIGHTNING_DISCHARGES

 

It's a slide presentation without explanatory text so it's hard going. But I get the general idea of the global atmosphere as an electric circuit and the formation of these upward discharges as due to relaxation of the imbalance of charge in thunderclouds, after a lightning discharge to earth.

 

https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/54/11/41/411642/Sprites-Elves-and-Glow-Discharge-TubesThe

This is a bit easier in terms of lay out and includes a comparison in a glow discharge tube with a sprite if you scroll down.

An explanation of the colour.

“Sprite light in the atmosphere (left) and in a laboratory glow discharge tube (right). In both cases, the light near the positive (anode) end is red and arises from the collisional excitation of neutral nitrogen molecules by free electrons. Also in both cases, the light near the negative (cathode) end is blue and arises from the collisional excitation of N2+ ions by free electrons.

 

That last bit I had already covered in post 16, but the rest looks interesting. Haven't gone through it yet.