this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers captured a stunning photograph of one of nature's most elusive phenomena from the International Space Station on July 3, 2025, initially believing she had documented a sprite, a rare form of atmospheric lightning, only to discover she had captured something even more extraordinary: a gigantic jet.

"Nichole Ayers caught a rare and spectacular form of a TLE from the International Space Station — a gigantic jet," confirmed Dr. Burcu Kosar, Principal Investigator of NASA's Spritacular project. The discovery represents one of the clearest views of this atmospheric phenomenon ever documented from space.

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[–] BreadOven@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

TLE? Did I miss the definition? Would be nice to have it in the body text.

Edit: went to the article which thankfully someone else posted. Transient Luminous Event is a TLE.

It's a Walmart. Specifically, the Tire and Lube Express.

[–] Jerb322@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So....they don't know what it is either?

[–] BreadOven@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Not sure. I definitely don't know what it is haha.

[–] ectofunk@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Cool, a new wallpaper

[–] Takeshidude@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Looks like the second impact

[–] derry@midwest.social 6 points 1 day ago

Sorry everyone, I knew trying everything on the taco bell menu was a bad idea but I couldn't stop

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 36 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

I wish every magical-thinking person would just put like 50% more effort in and actually learn about science, because it's so much cooler when you know it's actually real and why it's happening.

[–] nymnympseudonym@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I wish every magical-thinking person would join the reality-based community.

I wish the magical-thinking community were not treated like adults and given the ability to vote. That's just carelessness with our Democracy.

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[–] MojoMcJojo@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Learning about science is like learning about magic.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago

I know. It must have been designed.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago

Pretty sure someone's just opened a portal to hell.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 23 points 2 days ago
[–] Vorticity@lemmy.world 78 points 3 days ago (3 children)
[–] Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@fedia.io 141 points 3 days ago (2 children)

From the website:

Gigantic jets are a powerful type of electrical discharge that extends from the top of a thunderstorm into the upper atmosphere. They are typically observed by chance — often spotted by airline passengers or captured unintentionally by ground-based cameras aimed at other phenomena. Gigantic jets appear when the turbulent conditions at towering thunderstorm tops allow for lightning to escape the thunderstorm, propagating upwards toward space. They create an electrical bridge between the tops of the clouds (~20 km) and the upper atmosphere (~100 km), depositing a significant amount of electrical charge.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 30 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

Thank you! Can’t believe I had to scroll this far for an explanation. So then, are all those other patches of light also electrical storms?

Also what is a sprite in this context?

[–] Boddhisatva@lemmy.world 31 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

From the link above:

Sprites, on the other hand, are one of the most commonly observed types of TLEs [Transient Luminous Events] — brief, colorful flashes of light that occur high above thunderstorms in the mesosphere, around 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. Unlike gigantic jets, which burst upward directly from thundercloud tops, sprites form independently, much higher in the atmosphere, following powerful lightning strikes. They usually appear as a reddish glow with intricate shapes resembling jellyfish, columns, or carrots and can span tens of kilometers across. Sprites may also be accompanied or preceded by other TLEs, such as Halos and ELVEs (Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources), making them part of a larger and visually spectacular suite of high-altitude electrical activity.

[–] hikaru755@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

ELVEs (Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources)

This has to be one of the most shoehorned acronyms I've ever seen

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[–] Vorticity@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

A lot of the other light patches in this image are city lights.

[–] Deme@sopuli.xyz 7 points 3 days ago

The other patches of light are cities. Lightning isn't as grainy looking. The exposure time of the shot is short so the image doesn't blur as the station moves, so the chances are stacked against getting two flashes in the one image.

[–] flandish@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

good news. climate change means more violent storms. which means more chances for pictures?

[–] KneeTitts@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

So.. I click on the thumbnail and it shows me a smaller image. cool.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago

sorry forgot to link, thanks!

[–] Menschlicher_Fehler@feddit.org 60 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's one hell of a quest marker.

[–] Tedesche@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Especially when there’s no fast-travel.

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[–] badbytes@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

Space lightning is a far better name, IMHO.

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I wonder where we can get a higher res picture. It bums me out these articles that talk about a nasa photo never seem to link to a the source images.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Pretty much the norm. You know they have a higher res and its probably available if you know the magic url for it.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I dug through the astronaut photos and couldn't find it. Neat stuff in there, a time sink, but not easily searchable.

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

They don't make them readily available to the public even though they should. Its probably the cost of hosting that keeps it all buried somewhere.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

How are astronauts not just constantly shitting themselves in fear?

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You cannot poo in zero gravity. They have to dig around up there with their hands to manually remove excrement from their rectum

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't know if this is true, but I'm certainly going to repeat it as fact.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Well allow me to fix some mistakes. they can't poo normally, really, or it's rather hard. peristalsis probably works differently too, although it doesn't rely on gravity per se.

Anyway, first off, it's not 0 g, it's "microgravity", because technically if we're being pedantic, there's nowhere in the universe where there's literally zero G as it's kinda everywhere, but even less so for the people on the space station, they just happen to be in synchronous freefall with the station, indefinitely, which basically is the same as no gravity subjectively, but anyway.

They poop into walls nowadays, and apparently, no need for any manual helping. But @Flax_vert@feddit.uk there isn't honestly completely wrong, even if he meant it as a joke. I don't know how much you know about this, Flax, but here's where you hit home:

"There's a problem of separation," Roberts said. "Whatever comes out of you doesn't know it's supposed to come away from you." Each fecal collection bag came with a "finger cot" to allow the astronauts to manually move things along. Then they had to knead a germicide into their waste so that gas-expelling bacteria wouldn't flourish inside the sealed bag and cause it to explode.

[–] diptchip@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I wish you hadn’t... But thanks. lol

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[–] nymnympseudonym@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

explode

I believe the technical term is "ass-plode"

[–] vinnymac@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I knew lightning could strike horizontally and downward. But never realized it could go up. That just seems so weird to me.

I guess it’s less strange than ball lightning though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning

[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 days ago

Article says this is specifically not a sprite.

[–] LinguisticKerosene@lemmy.wtf 16 points 3 days ago
[–] spizzat2@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

So, does anyone have an idea of where on Earth we're looking at?

Anytime I look at images from the ISS, I try to identify cities, landmarks, or even a cardinal direction. I'm not very good at it...

I'm like 99% sure that were looking at the outside of Earth in the photo, but i can't be entirely sure.

[–] dogs0n@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

I think there's too many clouds? Anyways if I were to guess, I'd say houston (because of all of the problems in my life rn).

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[–] photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 3 days ago (2 children)

NASA can't fool me. That's a demon summoning if I've ever seen one.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

"New rift portal has opened"

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