Mysterious Light in Space Shocked Astronomers

 

the universe is cloaked in mystery from ominous black holes to powerful gamma-ray bursts and the possibilities of alternative

 life-forms and while we wonder about

 all of these distant enigmas there is something that is happening right above our heads a strange phenomenon that has baffled even the most seasoned scientists join us today as we

 take a trip into the stratosphere to uncover the source of this mysterious occurrence blue light earlier this year a strange blue light was spotted by the european space agency asim scientists have been tracking these occurrences through different monitors on the international space station for some time and in february of 2019 they managed to catch a record five of them in a row over the south pacific ocean the iridescence looked unreal like something out of a science fiction movie these images dubbed as blue flashes are

 invaluable to researchers and scientists these occurrences happen like the twinkling of an eye 10 microseconds and then they're gone they can however lead to something

 called a blue jet which lasts a little

 longer around a few tenths of a second so what are these flashes of electric blue light anyway jets we have all seen the effect storms can produce on land and one of the most captivating spectacles regardless of your age are lightning strikes these electric powerhouse flashes generate both shock and fear for astronomers even if there are over a billion lightning flashes per year if you're trying to do the math in your head right now that's about four dozen each second the source of this blue flash is found in those electrical fields and the activity for these flashes happen well above our sight lines into the stratosphere about 24 miles straight up typical lightning bolts are caused by negatively charged electrons attracted by positively charged protons in the ground or within the regions of a cloud itself the more unstable mix of opposing charges can create short and forceful surges of current which crash into nitrogen molecules in the air and release ultraviolet and blue light and in turn this leads to ionization in the

 air where electrons are pulled from molecules thereby creating an air channel that is capable of conducting electricity for clarification the bottom of a cloud and the top of a cloud can have vastly different environments when it comes to electrical charges nevertheless scientists have found that an impressive flow of electricity can be sent straight up through the cloud into the sky under specific conditions which then brings these blue flashes or jets to life elves here's something interesting

 that you probably didn't see coming

 these blue flashes are not just a product but a producer as well over time scientists have found out that these light emissions make elves and no it isn't the little fairy folks of bedtime stories or senna's workshop you're probably thinking elves is an acronym for emission of light and very low frequency perturbations due to electromagnetic pulse sources that's a bit of a stretch even for an acronym but it's fun so we'll take it each blue flash fast tracks electrons which creates intense pulses of radio waves that move towards the ionosphere located almost 50 miles above the surface of the earth this flow of energy in turn generates fast-moving circles of ultraviolet and blue light that pulse in a rippling circular or ring-like motion we have a lot to learn about this strange and exciting phenomenon and that's why we're currently observing images through equipment on the international space station the european asim positioned above the pacific ocean are so critical and valuable to science while there seems to be no danger in these emissions and light shows they are one of the many odd but interesting happenings in our clouds and overall atmosphere one such example is the red sprites another playful name for powerful energy now these events have been tracked by scientists for over a hundred years from both the ground and the sky however the name sprite wasn't given to this other mysterious phenomenon until the 1990s when dr davis sentman from the university of alaska felt this discharge had a whimsical and fleeting nature like that of a mythical sprite these charged up red bursts emit a short but powerful eruption of light that branches down like a root structure towards the earth or up towards the upper levels of the atmosphere the branches often range in color from red to blue and then down to white with decreasing altitude ultimately this begs the question is there a connection between these two events

 well there could be who knows but it's

 precisely why further research is necessary asteroids sometimes when we talk about these mysterious phenomena happening around us it seems as though the world is falling apart well when it comes to self-destructive asteroids then perhaps the world might just fall apart in 1988 a self-destructive asteroid called galt was discovered galt sits in the asteroid belt between mars and jupiter and according to observations from the hubble telescope it is anything but unexceptional two big trails are spreading out right behind galls one is about eight hundred thousand kilometers in length and forty eight hundred kilometers wide while the other is about a quarter as long both tails look like a comet and are being pushed out by the solar winds but comet tails are composed of ice crystals and gas these tails are made of dust and rubble that are being flung off by the asteroid at a walking pace the idea that such a thing exists alone is intriguing once every two hours the galt spins which results in fast enough flinging to cause landslides and throw the debris away at an escape velocity the disintegration of this asteroid results from something known as the yarkovsky o'keeffe radzievsky paddock effect and if that's too long call it yorp according to reports from nasa when sunlight shines on this phenomenon it gets heated and re-radiates that heat as infrared radiation while this process happens the asteroid also carries a little bit of angular momentum gaining torque and causing it to spin faster if the effect of this process is symmetrical the process will become cumulative over millions of years the asteroid will eventually spin faster and faster until the centrifugal force becomes too much for the asteroid structure resulting in the shedding of debris

 on earth in a series of landslides

 no wait the world isn't ending due to asteroids so you don't have to worry the space agency has stated that such types of self-destructive asteroids are rare and occur just once a year about a couple of dozen of them have been seen so far besides apart from the drama that comes with the asteroid breaking it allows scientists to learn more about its mystery without visiting them gamma-ray bursts beyond our blue flashes jets the red sprites and self-destructive asteroids the atmosphere sometimes encounters terrestrial gamma-ray flashes these are not the same gamma-ray bursts found in the universe that are life-destroying explosions of energy instead these flashes are explosions of high-energy photons that spawn off the top of thunderstorms these happen when electrons in a cloud move at the speed of light and interact with air molecules creating strong offshoots of radio waves according to nasa these terrestrial gamma-ray flashes occur unpredictably and fleetingly with durations less than a thousandth of a second and remain poorly understood understanding these kind of phenomena can show us how radio waves move through the atmosphere and how bursts may affect our high-tech communication systems improvements in our imaging technology and the ability to slow down these ultra-fast surges can open the door for a lot of scientific research and development and while we tend to look towards the furthest corners of space to bring us insight into our own world perhaps looking back towards earth from space can be just as valuable because there's so much that we can't see or understand from our ground so having the perspective to look down towards our planet will provide a new viewpoint and level of understanding that might perhaps change the world so what do you think is there any other mystery you'd like us to investigate tell us in the comments and if you learned something new be sure to hit the like button and subscribe to our channel for more great articles like this