Possible New Phenomenon Taped in Space

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Astronauts videotaping thunderstorms from the space shuttle Columbia captured what scientists said Thursday was a never-before-seen arc of red 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.

Yair, project coordinator for Israeli experiments on board the Columbia in its current mission, said analysts would attempt over the next few weeks to confirm scientists’ initial impression that the glow is neither a sprite nor an elf, two other electrical phenomena associated with thunderstorms.

“It is raw data hot from the oven,” Yair said. “It’s a grainy and noisy image, but for scientists it’s a treasure trove. That’s what we like.”

Scientists were excited by the news that astronauts Sunday captured the first pictures of elves taken from space with a calibrated camera. The shuttle and its seven-member crew, which includes Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, are on a 16-day science mission that began Jan. 16.

The study of sprites, elves and other luminosities associated with thunderstorms is part of what Yair described as a new discipline in the field of upper-atmospheric physics. Sprites, which are red flashes shooting up from thunderstorms, were discovered only as recently as 1989, followed by elves, which are spreading red doughnut shapes, in 1994.

The latest luminosity, Yair said, was a narrow limb-like glow, hundreds of miles in length, red in color and probably caused by nitrogen. Yair said the band was especially bright.

“It seems that the atmosphere still holds surprises for us,” Yair said.

Yair said scientists studying these electrical discharges were looking to further basic science rather than develop specific products.