Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] two more articles on shuttle

[Michael Procter <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 09:55:35AM -0600, Mike Miller wrote:
> Two more articles FYI.  The second one looks really interesting!  What
> would cause a bolt of purple lightning??  --Mike
> 
> 

That seems to be a fairly common description for a certain kind of
lightning:

http://www.stormstock.com/lightning_footage.html

http://www.stormpages.com/alarry8/stormpictures/purple_spider_17.html

This guy suggests it's really a plasma of nitrogen and oxygen:

http://www.amasci.com/tesla/spark.html

Somewhat curiously, the mission included observation of elves, sprites
and other upper atmosphere electrical phenomena.  They also discovered a
previously unseen "red arc" 

"Thursday, January 23, 2003 Posted: 8:22 PM EST (0122 GMT)
   CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) -- Astronauts videotaping
   thunderstorms from the space shuttle Columbia captured what
   scientists said Thursday was a never-before-seen red glowing arc of
   light paralleling the curve of the Earth.

   'Two nights ago over Africa was an extraordinary image. We saw a huge
   horizontal line of air glow which has been brightened by lightning
   below it which extended to several hundred miles horizontally and we
   feel it may be something new,' said Dr. Yoav Yair."

The original link for this has gone 404, but you can find it in Google's
cache if you type in "red arc shuttle"

This guy ties it all together in a rather creative way:

http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/indexback66.html
-- 
Michael Procter
EMAIL:PROTECTED
--
To unsubscribe, go to http://mlug.missouri.edu/members/edit.php

Archives are available at http://mlug.missouri.edu/list-archives/