RED SPRITES AND BLUE JETS - THUNDERSTORM-EXCITED OPTICAL-EMISSIONS IN THE STRATOSPHERE, MESOSPHERE, AND IONOSPHERE

Recent low light level monochrome television observations obtained from the ground and from the space shuttle, and low light level color and monochrome television images obtained from aboard jet aircraft, have shown that intense lightning in mesoscale thunderstorm systems may excite at least two distinct types of optical emissions that together span the space between the tops of some thunderstorms and the ionosphere. The first of these emissions, dubbed "sprites," are luminous red structures that typically span the altitude range 60-90 km, often with faint bluish tendrils dangling below. A second, rarer, type of luminous emission are "blue jets" that appear to spurt upward out of the anvil top in narrow cones to altitudes of 40-50 km at speeds of ∼100 km/s. In this paper the principal observational characteristics of sprites and jets are presented, and several proposed production mechanisms are reviewed. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.