In another spectacular spectacle, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) recently saw a blue ray. Describing his observations in the journal Nature, said it was captured by its instruments on February 26, 2019. Blue ray lighting, also known as upper atmosphere lighting, is lightning that shoots up storms.
The phenomenon was seen by European monitors of space interactions in the atmosphere near the island of Naru in the Pacific Ocean. Scientists report seeing five intense flashes of blue light, each lasting between 10 and 20 milliseconds. The blue ray came out of the cloud with a narrow cone shape that extended into the stratosphere, the atmospheric layer that extends 10 to 50 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, as described a livescience.com.
‘elves seen’
In addition to blue rays, the researchers also saw another phenomenon occurring in the upper atmosphere. Known as “elves”, the phenomenon means Light emissions and low frequency disturbances due to sources of electromagnetic dust. Now the European Space Agency (ESA) has released a visualization of the phenomenon by an animated artist. Watch it here:
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In another news story about ESA, a space probe designed by the UK made its first flyby of Venus as it headed for the Sun on a mission to decode the mysteries of the neighboring planet. The spacecraft is expected to tilt under the influence of the gravitational force of the Sun, as it will face Venus to make observations that will help scientists learn more about the planet. The Solar Orbiter perihelion in the Sun occurred on December 27, around 12:39 UTC (13:39 CET) in the middle of the holiday season, according to ESA. The spacecraft will fly about 7,500 km from the top of the Venus cloud.
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