It was the fourth of July, and up in house, orbiting the Earth within the Worldwide Area Station, Nichole Ayers captured a picture that’s so uncommon, it appears pretend.
Like huge electrical fireworks, it detonated within the skinny air as much as 55 miles in altitude.
Earth.com reported:
“These transient spectacles – blue jets, crimson sprites, violet halos, ultraviolet rings – are collectively referred to as transient luminous occasions, or TLEs.”
What was as soon as pilot’s folklore started to be studied by ‘eyes in house’.
“The Worldwide Area Station (ISS) has modified that by providing an unobstructed seat above the storms, the place specialised cameras and sensors seize each fleeting spark.”
NASA Astronaut on ISS caught this sprite over the U.S. this morning. Even nature knew it was the Fourth of July. pic.twitter.com/RsbtV5JMvn
— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyMMA) July 9, 2025
Initially considered a sprite, it’s since been confirmed to be a fair rarer type of a Transient Luminous Occasions (TLEs) — a huge jet.
NASA web site reported:
“’Nichole Ayers caught a uncommon and spectacular type of a TLE from the Worldwide Area Station — a huge jet’, stated Dr. Burcu Kosar, Principal Investigator of the Spritacular mission. ”
Gigantic jets are a large electrical discharge ‘that extends from the highest of a thunderstorm into the higher ambiance’.
“They’re sometimes noticed by probability — typically noticed by airline passengers or captured unintentionally by ground-based cameras geared toward different phenomena.
Gigantic jets seem when the turbulent circumstances at towering thunderstorm tops enable for lightning to flee the thunderstorm, propagating upwards towards house.”
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