NASA needs your help identifying electric ‘sprites’

It’s one of the least understood phenomena in earth’s atmosphere, and now NASA is asking for your help to better understand it.

They’re called ‘sprites’ and they are Transient Luminous Events or TLEs. According to NASA, TLEs range from electrical events known as blue jets to more spooky occurrences like Trolls, Pixies, Ghosts, Elves and Gnomes – all real electrical event terms. 

These sprites are large-scale electrical discharges that typically are found when thunderstorms are present. Unlike traditional lightning that we expect with thunderstorms, these sprites occur high into the atmosphere – sometimes higher than 50 miles above Earth’s surface. 

While all of Earth’s weather happens in the lowest 6 miles of the atmosphere, known as the Troposphere, we can find these sprites between 30-50 miles high. This part of Earth’s atmosphere is known as the Mesosphere and it’s here where electrical charges can act a bit weird.

The new citizen science project that NASA has launched is trying to connect scientists that better understand this topic to those citizens that may have captured these events on camera.

“People capture wonderful images of sprites, but they’re shared sporadically over the internet and most of the scientific community is unaware of these captures,” said Dr. Burcu Kosar in a press release from NASA. “Spritacular will bridge this gap by creating the first crowdsourced database of sprites and other TLEs that is accessible and readily available for scientific research.”

Sprites appear moments after a lighting strike has occurred, leading to a sudden flash in the upper atmosphere that dons a reddish hue, and can often take a variety of different shapes. While eyewitness reports of these strange flashes have dated back hundreds of years, it wasn’t until 1989 that scientists captured their first event on camera.

“It wasn’t a very high resolution or fast camera—they just captured two luminous blobs above a nearby thunderstorm,” Kosar said. “The whole field was kick-started because a camera was pointed in the right direction at the right time.”

That’s where this citizen science project comes in. Spritacular aims to build an image database of observed spite events across the globe. All photos submitted will be asked for specific details, like the location they took the photo as well as the date and time of the photo. 

Scientists who are studying this topic review all submitted photos. If a photo is selected to lead to a scientific study, the photographer will be credited in future scientific publications.

To learn more about the Spritacular Citizen Science Project, you can visit their website. And if you think you may have captured a sprite event and want to submit your photos to be reviewed by a scientist, the first step is easy – just create an account. Then just follow the prompts on how to submit your photos and the details needed for scientists to verify the sprite in the image.

Since launching the project, NASA has recieved dozens of photos including sightings in Puerto Rico, Texas, Greece and Hungary. 

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