Tag

Green Ghost

All articles tagged with #green ghost

"Discovery: Unraveling the Enigma of Mesospheric Ghosts"

Originally Published 2 years ago — by Big Think

In 2019, nature documentarian Hank Schyma captured a mysterious green afterglow, dubbed the "green ghost," following red sprite events during intense thunderstorms. This rare mesospheric emission, requiring specific atmospheric conditions and asteroid dust, was finally documented by astrophysicists in a study published in "Nature Communications" in 2023. The green ghost appears in the footprint of a red sprite and has been observed by amateur storm chasers more frequently than researchers, with the U.S. Great Plains being notorious for their large quantities of sprites.

science science atmospheric-phenomena green-ghost mesospheric-ghosts science tles upper-atmospheric-lightning

Unveiling the Enigmatic Green Ghosts: Astronomers Capture Spectroscopic Data for the First Time

Originally Published 2 years ago — by Phys.org

Astronomers have successfully captured spectroscopic data from a mesospheric green ghost for the first time. These green ghosts, which appear during thunderstorms as a greenish glow on top of transient luminous events (TLEs), were previously speculated to be excited oxygen atoms. However, the researchers found evidence of nickel, iron, nitrogen, and oxygen in the green ghost, suggesting that it resulted from meteoric ablation of interplanetary dust particles moving through the atmosphere at high speed. The team's years-long effort to capture this data sheds light on the nature of atmospheric green ghosts.

science astronomy astronomy atmospheric-phenomena green-ghost lightning mesosphere spectroscopy