Last night, a powerful lightning storm sweeping across Lithuania gave a rare spectacle – a sprite, also known as a cosmic lightning bolt, lit up the sky. This phenomenon was captured by Tadas Janušonis, a member of the Facebook group “SkyChasersLT”.
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“I was watching an incredible lightning disco from afar and didn’t feel sad at all. I thought I just needed to relax and enjoy what was happening, and immediately the sprite lit up,” T. Janušonis wrote in the post. “Probably, this is the best composition photo I have ever taken with a sprite.”
According to T. Janušonis, the phenomenon was caused by a lightning discharge recorded about 130 kilometers away, near Pabradė.
What is a sprite?
Above powerful storm clouds, unusual pink flashes sometimes light up, called “sprites” in English. In Lithuanian, these phenomena are also called kaukai or cosmic lightning bolts. They are short-lived electrical discharges occurring in the upper layers of the atmosphere above active thunderstorms.
Dr. Vidas Dobrovolskas, a scientist at the Faculty of Physics at Vilnius University, explained that these phenomena form much higher than ordinary lightning – at about 50–90 kilometers altitude.
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Cosmic lightning bolts usually appear after a very strong lightning discharge between a storm cloud and the Earth’s surface. Such a discharge briefly changes the electric field above the clouds and excites gases high in the atmosphere.
“A powerful lightning discharge creates an impulse that affects atmospheric layers much higher up,” V. Dobrovolskas told 15min.
The red color of these phenomena arises from excited nitrogen molecules. In shape, sprites can resemble jellyfish, carrots, branched trees, or vertical columns of light. However, they appear in the sky very briefly – usually only for a few or several milliseconds.
“They are very difficult to capture,” said V. Dobrovolskas.
The phenomenon is short-lived and relatively faint, and it is usually only visible at night, when observing a distant storm near the horizon.
