The Astronomy Picture of the Day for September 9th was taken in July by astronaut Nichole Ayers from the International Space Station. The plume of plasma rising from the clouds over earth is a Transient Luminous Event, or TLE. There are several kinds of TLEs, including jets, sprites, elves, trolls, ghosts, gnomes, and pixies.
This particular type of TLE was later confirmed to be a gigantic jet, which is pretty rare. It's rarer still to catch it in a photograph, since the longest of them only last a couple of seconds. According to NASA, a gigantic jet is a huge electrical discharge going from the top of a high thunderstorm (around 20 kilometers) upward toward the upper atmosphere (around 100 kilometers). In other words, atmospheric storms produce a lot more electricity than we see on earth, but not all of that power makes its way down to us. Nice to know. -via TYWKIWDBI
(Image credit: NASA/Nichole Ayers)
