10 Famous Blue Lightning Strike Events in History, with the 5th Still Unexplained!

8. The Blue Sprite of 2015

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Researchers on the International Space Station caught hitherto unheard-of pictures of a rare type of blue lightning known as a "sprite" in July 2015. Usually at altitudes between 50 and 90 km, sprites are huge-scale electrical discharges that arise high above thunderstorm clouds. The 2015 incident was especially important since it revealed complex formations of blue and red light that matched jellyfish or carrots, therefore offering the most clear photographs to date of this elusive phenomena. Sprite movement from the cloud tops towards the border of space lasts just a few milliseconds, unlike ordinary lightning. The blue hue seen in the sprite's lower sections was ascribed to the excitation of molecular nitrogen at great altitudes. For atmospheric scientists, this finding gave important information that helps to improve models of the energy flow between several levels of the atmosphere during thunderstorms. Apart from expanding our knowledge of upper-atmospheric electricity, the Blue Sprite of 2015 underlined the significance of space-based observations in investigating these transient and difficult-to-detect events.