Have you ever wondered about the many experiments taking place at the International Space Station (ISS)? What do astronauts study in this orbiting laboratory?
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Well, many things of course but one of them is the weather: especially the kind of weather events not seen from Earth. These are called blue jets, and elves (short for Light Emissions and Very Low Frequency Effects Due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources), and their monitoring is made possible by a European device called the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM).
ASIM, installed in the space station in 2018, includes a collection of optical cameras, photometers, and an X and gamma-ray detector and is there to detect the transmission of electricity from unpredictable weather events. seen only in space. It is crucial that you understand these galactic weather events not only on the weather on Earth but also on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the Earth ‘s atmosphere.
What are blue elves and jets?
But what about blue jets and elves? Blue jets, as their name implies, are blue lightning currents that do not go to land but instead burn up into space. As the images show, they are very beautiful to look at.
Elves, on the other hand, are light emitters that appear as rapidly expanding rings in the ionosphere.
Both prey and blue jets were spotted by ASIM on February 26, 2019 near Nauru, a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They are now outlined in a paper published in Nature on January 20, 2021. The study provides a detailed account of these events capturing their stunning beauty even without the use of images.
It’s well worth a read if you’re fond of space scarcity. It is also a symbol of everything we still have to discover on our precious planet.
“This paper is an impressive overview of the many new wonders that ASIM sees above storm surges and shows that we have so much to discover and learn about our Universe,” said Astrid Orr, Co-ordinator ESA Physical Sciences for human and robotic space lighting.