SpaceX’s ultimate goal is to blanket the space around Earth in these satellites. As they pass overhead, they appear like a bright train of lights as the satellites follow one after the other in orbit. Appearing around 80-100km above the ground, they look very different to sprites. Archived. Each weighs about 260 kilograms and is roughly the size of a flattened car, with a large solar panel that reflects sunlight. Currently there are no laws or regulations that protect the aesthetic of the night sky. The Internet makes finding weird things like this so much easier. The following year, on October 1, 2016, a very unusual aerial phenomenon was observed over Bridge City, Texas. The term ELVES is a clunky acronym chosen to complement their cousins the sprites. After dusk and before dawn, when the Sun has dipped just below the horizon, the satellites reflect the Sun’s light back onto the ground, making them shine quite brightly. Every time a storm begins rumbling in the sky, we on Earth are quite lucky to look up and see a sky full of lightning. "The thunderstorm needs to produce a special kind of flash, and they're rare. The researchers recorded the spectrum of light that the ball gave off, and analysed it to see if they could determine what this unusual lightning was made of. These are the mirages that can make the Sun seem to move in shimmering waves. These flashes need to remove a lot of electrons from the thundercloud. He pointed out that the scream appeared after the lightning every time (Image: YouTube/DanielRobb) Read More Related Articles. News. Warner has studied and photographed these rare events since becoming fascinated by an upward lightning bolt in 2004. He also makes occasional TV and radio appearances for the BBC and elsewhere, providing analysis on the latest space news. Before the coronavirus pandemic emerged, the company planned to launch about 1,500 Starlink satellites by the end of 2020, bringing its service online in the U.S. and Canada first. By some estimates, hundreds of Starlink satellites could be constantly visible in the night sky from any location on Earth. During these months, the satellites can appear very visible in the night sky when they fly over your location because of their reflective surfaces. COLUMBUS, Ohio — If you saw some weird lights in the sky earlier this evening, you’re not alone. You can imagine it like a sheet flapping in the wind, and every once in a while it will get really messed up and that's when these dramatic events happen.". You can see more of his writing or get in contact at jonathanocallaghan.com. This is known as a mega constellation. Regarding collisions, its says each of its satellites is equipped with an automated system to dodge other satellites. To get his data and images, he has piloted an armour-plated plane into the hearts of storms. SpaceX’s goal with Starlink is to beam high-speed internet to every single location on Earth, from London to Antarctica. The shock waves were racing through, and as the later waves arrived there was an explosion of lights, These lights are a plasma discharge that happens when a particular type of rock is under stress and builds up an electric charge, Freund says. This is a project by SpaceX to launch thousands of satellites into orbit, and beam the internet to Earth from space. A strange orange lightning in the Norman sky fuels fantasies 2020-12-10T08:29:54.777Z. Weird. In January 2020, it launched a Starlink satellite that had been coated in a darkened paint, to try and lower its reflectivity. "There are marvellous examples of gigantic jets developing off the coast of Africa," says Fullekrug. But as the price of powerful cameras has dropped, sprites are being caught on camera increasingly often. For example, the association with marshy areas suggests that the light comes from burning marsh gas, which is mainly methane. It happened probably five times over the course of half an hour or so. The video was shot in West Australia during an intense thunderstorm. Researchers do know that there is another phenomenon called a gigantic jet, which seems to be a hybrid of a blue jet and a sprite. During a storm in San Antonio on October 16, 2019, a dark mysterious object fell from the sky during a lightning strike. That's why the sky appears blue. "You can get a low-quality picture of a sprite with a camera of a couple of hundred pounds," says Fullekrug. 1886 depiction of ball lightning ("The Aerial World" by Dr. G. Hartwig). The clip seems to show balls of fire floating in the sky, while lightning flashes around them (Image: SecureTeam10/YouTube). Strange Sounds News. Alongside Forbes, his work has appeared in The New York Times, Scientific American, Nature, New Scientist, Wired, and a variety of other publications. The company also says it is trying to make the satellites less bright. As you'd expect loud thunder to hit seconds later, residents described it as "the weirdest storm" as … The entire sky seemed to light up very brightly for a second or so along with a loud eerie almost sci fi sounding noise. Sprites dance in the mesosphere – higher than where shooting stars and meteors burn up. The satellites can appear as bright streaks in telescope images, ruining observations of galaxies and stars. ELVES are mainly white because they're so intense. Verse Concepts. SpaceX, for its part, says it is addressing these concerns. Lightning storm lights up Tasmanian sky. Some people are worried we are putting too many satellites in orbit (artist's impression, not to ... [+] scale). It is very difficult to see an ELVE with the naked eye. Lightning was travelling not from cloud to ground, but shooting up from buildings into storm clouds. SpaceX launches the satellites on its Falcon 9 rockets. "It is very difficult to see an ELVE with the naked eye. "There are arcs, westward surges, beading, all kinds of names for different visible shapes. Sprites or red sprites are large-scale electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorm clouds, or cumulonimbus, giving rise to a quite varied range of visual shapes flickering in the night sky.They are usually triggered by the discharges of positive lightning between an underlying thundercloud and the ground.. Sprites appear as luminous reddish-orange flashes. The atmosphere splits the Sun's white light into its separate colours, just like a prism: it bends red more than orange, orange more than yellow, and so on. Blue atmospheric phenomena are hard to study from the ground, because the atmosphere is so good at scattering blue light. If this electrical field becomes strong enough, it can break air molecules down into electrically-charged particles. weird yellow lightning in the sky, what is it.? Numerous videos have been cropping up on social media showing the flashes brighten the night sky above Mexico City, but the flashes aren't lightning coming from the clouds above, or even lights from planes. This means that it is around the same size as Saturn and Neptune. There's bound to be some odd and bizarre news to make you stand back in amazement. Odd Looking, But Perfectly Safe. RIVERSIDE COUNTY (KABC) -- It appears a mystery has been solved after new reports surfaced Wednesday night of strange lights seen in the sky over Southern California. Each Starlink satellite has a large reflective solar panel. That may now change. Sometimes, you will see bolts of lightning even when it’s not raining. It turned out to have a very earthly origin: soil. Watching the video, the dark object appears next to the lightning strike before it falls to the ground. Because of this, astronomers have reported that the satellites are hampering their ability to study the universe. If will-o'-the-wisp really did represent a natural process, there are some possible explanations that Garlaschelli could test. Instances of ball lightning—glowing, electric orbs in the sky—have captivated and mystified us for centuries. The light wasn't hot and wouldn't burn anything on board. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. NOAA. The satellites are launched in batches of 60, with SpaceX aiming to launch roughly two batches very month – although they haven’t quite achieved that frequency yet. Even so, Ackerman wants to see St Elmo's fire naturally. When they reach the upper atmosphere, they interact with gases. An ordinary CCTV camera with good night vision can snap a low quality image. Re: Strange Lights In The Sky Around The World They had this blue "lightning" in Washington state the other night and hundreds of thousands of power outages after. Thunderclouds create a strong electric field, because there is a strong difference in electrical charge between the cloud and the ground, which you can sometimes feel as static. When an ordinary cloud-to-ground lightning bolt strikes the ground, it can vaporise certain minerals in the soil. "Blue jets are a little bit of a mystery," says Fullekrug. The photographer said that he was recording to lightning … Weird News. The green, blue and red shapes of the auroras, swirling over the two poles of the Earth, are a visible map of events that happened thousands of kilometres away. Mystery 'UFO followed by big black trail' falls 'slowly' from sky over Brit town Taking to Reddit three days ago, user/wizvrdhd posted three images of the strange blue light above Pennsylvania. Commercial jetliners fly at a height of six to seven miles altitude. These noises went on for over twenty minutes. EMAIL. In all fairness, weather balloons are high-altitude, spherically … Answer Save. COLUMBUS, Ohio — If you saw some weird lights in the sky earlier this evening, you’re not alone. The elusiveness of these deep red flashes earned them their ethereal name, adopted from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The dark cloud had turned to white, then dispersed. And they're a bit controversial. But the Sun has not changed colour: the flash is caused by a mirage. Many Norman Internet users saw an orange line in the sky this Wednesday evening. Mysterious screams ‘like a banshee’ heard piercing through Texas night sky. I will go outside in the daylight to see if it made a mark in my yard, if so I'm taking a lot of pictures, I can't explain it, kinda hovered there glowing, I believe I saw ball lightning, it is very real, I'm still shocked that I saw this weird ball of light just 20 feet away from where I … You might feel a bit funny, but you wouldn't be harmed.". However, people have raised concerns about the number of satellites SpaceX is launching. Smoke from wildfires burning in Angeles National Forest fills the sky June 20, 2016, behind the Los Angeles skyline. The sudden disruption to the electric field causes a "lightning leader", a channel of positive or negative charge, to travel up to an area of thundercloud with the opposite charge. Brits were dazzled by 'silent lightning' during bizarre weather across the UK last night, with the Met Office anticipating further thunderstorms throughout the country today and tomorrow Earth is not the only planet with auroras. These lights are actually satellites, launched into space by the U.S. company SpaceX, run by South African entrepreneur Elon Musk. You can use websites like Find Starlink or this handy tool to see when they will be visible above your location. M4.6, M3.2, M2.9 earthquakes hit the Mendocino fracture zone off California – A reminder of the 1992 Petrolia earthquakes and that the Cascadia is overdue. Ocean horizons often produce the best mirages for spotting a green flash. NASA Spacecraft At Mars And The International Space Station Detected ‘Giant Cosmic Flare’ From ‘Silver Dollar Galaxy’, Oldest, Farthest, Brightest: Astronomers Discover Cosmic Heavyweight, Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day Comes As Several Asteroids Whip By, Like Normal, Dinosaur Fossil From Argentina Could Belong To Largest Terrestrial Animal Known To Science, Check Out These Jaw-Dropping Photographs Of Kīlauea’s Ongoing Eruption, Elon Musk’s SpaceX May Have Bought Two Oil Rigs And Named Them ‘Phobos’ And ‘Deimos’ For Future Starship Launches To Mars, This Coloring Book Shows What A Scientist Really Looks Like. Earlier in 2015, Swenson launched a rocket into the aurora, "Auroras can have many shapes and structures, depending on what the magnetosphere is doing," says Charles Swenson of Utah State University in Logan, US. It is unknown what the object might have been but what makes it weird is that it’s faster than the lightning. It burned white and then red for a few seconds before vanishing. I guess it could have maybe been lightning but it light up the entire sky and was unlike any lightning I’ve ever seen. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. "A friend at a local university secured footage when a magnitude 8 earthquake hit the south of Lima. They took it to be a good omen and called it St Elmo's fire. Dashcam footage captured a rare sunny-sky lightning bolt hitting a tree in the suburb of Tampa, Florida: Jonathan Moore captured the video of the bolt from the blue on his Thinkware dashcam. Unbelievable rare form of upward-moving lightning caught on camera. A long, slow current is needed to make a sprite, and such currents can form in big storm systems reaching 100km across. "But gigantic jets are rare. "It was challenging and required intense concentration. There was a … There have been numerous reports from places like the U.S. and U.K. of people seeing them, with explanations ranging from UFOs to an alien invasion. The shock waves were racing through, and as the later waves arrived there was an explosion of lights.". However it is not clear what would set the gas alight. Meteorologists now know around one in a thousand lightning bolts strike upward. Okay, I usually don't mind strange noises, but these noises have been going on for like 2 hours here in my neighborhood! ... and then it gets really bright like dusk or a firework or lightning in the background,” Tim explained. Very large thunderstorms can produce these phenomena, which are known as sprites. The bizarre phenomenon, also known as globe lightning, usually appears during thunderstorms as a floating sphere that can range in color from blue to orange to yellow, disappearing within a few seconds. High above a thundercloud and its exchange of lightning with the ground, you might find a sudden reddish glow stretching for tens to hundreds of kilometres. Weird and strange news stories from across the globe. The lights appear in groups of up to 60 in a long line. From St Elmo's fire to sprites and blue jets, discover the peculiar glowing balls and streaks that form in Earth's atmosphere. "A thunderstorm moved into the area, and at one point many of the pipes had a blue glow over them," says Ackerman. I … Elon Musk does not think Starlink satellites will be a problem for astronomy. If a searchlight shines up, then something dark in the sky can reflect part of the light and so become visible. You may opt-out by. Lightning was seen across Saltfleetby (Image: Paul Cotton). Every time I flew through a thunderstorm, I reaffirmed that it was no place for a plane.". These filaments are highly reactive, and burn with the oxygen in the air to create the orange glow that the researchers measured. Lightning … Another concern is that the satellites are very bright, outshining 99 percent of all other satellites in the night sky. A maelstrom is a strong whirlpool that forms when opposing currents meet to form swirling water. Watching the video, the dark object appears next to the lightning strike before it falls to the ground. But despite decades of research on upward lightning, its exact mechanism is still a puzzle. Weird Lightning - Coub - The Biggest Video Meme Platform by Lex The gases become "plasma", and give off a glowing light. Lightning strikes can explode a tree. The particles from the Sun slide along the contours of the magnetic field towards the poles. If two satellites collide, they can explode and produce thousands of small pieces of debris. Posted by. The particles can give the air molecules enough energy to release electrons, causing them to glow in a range of colours. Strange white orb spotted flying ‘over NORAD military base’ in Colorado "It likely is a banshee," one agreed. Because red undergoes the strongest bending effect, it appears to fall past the horizon first, followed by orange, yellow and green. Daniel Robb noticed a shrieking sound "coming from out the sky" a few seconds after the lightning and his footage has been seen more than 35,000 times, where viewers offered their own suggestions. To make the last green rays visible, there also has to be a mirage that makes the Sun appear much larger than usual. Today only about 2,000 active satellites orbit Earth; SpaceX will increase this by six times, and possibly by 21 times. Like St Elmo's fire, the will-o'-the-wisp is a faint light that has been reported for centuries. This can take several months to do. cirrostratus or cirrus clouds). But it is not clear there is anything to study. Something's really weird with the lightning in this game... Close. The colours beyond green – blue, indigo, and violet – are strongly scattered by the gases in the atmosphere. All of the fish were alive. Starlink satellites seen after the first launch in May 2019. Maelstrom. Most read in Weird. Alongside Forbes, his. TWEET. "The question is, are the invisible parts of the aurora dancing and moving as rapidly as the visible parts?" Angels Doing God's Work God Will No More Be Angry Angels Activities Among Unbelievers Seven Things. Weird world of lightning strikes reveals nuclear fusion bursts in the sky. The sharp branches of lightning strikes look like an arsenal of sharp weapons stabbing the sky, all at the same time. "They're expanding rings of light," says Fullekrug. Each time the satellites are launched, on the company’s own reusable Falcon 9 rockets, they are placed into orbit about 290 kilometers above the surface of Earth. They can last 10-100ms, so they are relatively slow compared to other storm events. Videos shared on to social media captures the lightning turning the dark sky to purple as it flashes over a thick cloud formation, Manchester Evening News reports. “Strange weird jet-like noises in the sky,” posted by DerekJava, September 14, 2011. Mystery as night sky turns bright pink over 'one particular area' Read More Related Articles. This could ruin the natural beauty of the night sky, and make astronomy much more difficult. Jonathan is a freelance space and science journalist that specializes in commercial spaceflight, space exploration, astronomy, and astrophysics. Theories were posed about what the purple could be from low hanging clouds to an alien invasion. I’ve been able to identify iridescent clouds , pileus clouds , and many other weird atmospheric phenomena with just a few clicks. Coseismic earthquake lights, which happen during an earthquake, are bursts of light coming out of the ground over a space of a few kilometres. Phoenix. Storm photographer Tom Warner is now researching how upward lightning is triggered, at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, US. 5. "We think that when we push the rocks together very fast, the charge is relieved through a plasma discharge up from the rock.". They are broader, wedge-shaped jets of light and easier to see. But unlike St Elmo's fire, in recent times people have reported it less and less. It is unknown what the object might have been but what makes it weird is that it’s faster than the lightning. They aren't born within the clouds. In recent years, the abundancy of security cameras has led to beautiful videos of earthquake lights. Starlink satellites seen after the first launch in May 2019. There was a lightning storm going on pretty good at the time. See more. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. But, though I looked and looked, I saw nothing that was making the noise. "I've still not seen it first-hand, but I'll keep looking for it.". Ball lightning: weird, mysterious, perplexing, and deadly The strange phenomenon of ball lightning appears during thunderstorms and has been known … www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150928-ten-strange-lights-that-appear-in-the-sky There are marvellous examples of gigantic jets developing off the coast of Africa, "We don't know the ideal conditions for a blue jet to form," says Fullekrug. Sailors out at sea would sometimes see a bluish glow seeming to shoot out of the ends of the masts of ships at night. They're also very narrow and rare. UFO sighting: 'UFO falls from sky' during double rainbow after being 'struck by lightning' ... a mysterious black object falling from the sky just after a lightning hit. SpaceX hopes to use this to fund missions to Mars. Of course. You may have noticed the sky has a strange tint to it today. "Some of the best records are in Peru," Freund says. Starlink has already caused issues for some astronomers. I've still not seen it first-hand, but I'll keep looking for it, Ackerman's brother was working on some copper piping in his basement during some bad weather. This could lead to a worst-case scenario where parts of Earth orbit become unusable, known as the “Kessler syndrome”, and popularized in the movie Gravity. Small storms are just as likely to make them as big storms, as a really fast current can happen in any storm. This was the first natural ball lightning to be studied. They can come in many different shapes, forms, and colours. The satellites are part of something called Starlink. When it was overhead, the cloud released its contents: rain, catfish, bass, and bream. Perching cameras on top of the Empire State Building in New York, US in 1935, Karl McEachron of the General Electric Company recorded something strange. "One idea is that when thunderstorms get really tall, they pierce into the thinner layers of the atmosphere above." Often dismissed as a myth, ball lightning turns out to be quite real. Imagine 15 million volts of electricity hitting a tree branch. "They're really, really fast," Fullekrug says. However, it still appeared bright in the months it took to reach this orbit. Jonathan is a freelance space and science journalist that specializes in commercial spaceflight, space exploration, astronomy, and astrophysics. The photographer said that he was recording to lightning … Upward lightning. Share ; Comments; By. What's going on? Some 19th-century reports describe balls that eventually explode and leave behind an odor of sulfur. Strange clouds in the sky look like bird and rainbows (videos) Strange Sounds-Jan 12, 2021 5. What Is The Most Common Type Of Planet In The Universe? A similar plasma glow can be created in the laboratory, using sharp or pointed objects to intensify an electrical field. "That's when I start looking into what caused it.". If you’ve looked up at the night sky recently, you might have been surprised to see a train of bright lights moving across from one side to the other. Video shot same day it was uploaded. Less than 10% of the U.S. population has reportedly witnessed ball lightning; a free-floating red, orange, or yellow sphere of light. According to UFO investigators SecureTeam 10, on this evening at around 11PM a point of white light appeared in the sky, which then steadily formed a streak across the sky, growing larger and brighter, as well as taking on an orange hue.. Described as a will-o’-the-wisp, “a peculiar light about the size of a 10-cent piece held … Unlike for sprites, to get an ELVE the discharge has to be very sharp, so the two rarely occur at the same time. Ball lightning is an unexplained phenomenon described as luminescent, spherical objects that vary from pea-sized to several meters in diameter.Though usually associated with thunderstorms, the phenomenon is said to last considerably longer than the split-second flash of a lightning bolt. “I had posted about a large boom heard over 3-5 counties in PA 2 weeks ago, these lights were seen directly after,” the user wrote. Suddenly a ball of light about 5m across appeared in front of them. This happened in 2009 between a U.S. and Russian satellite. This report is most unusual: In an otherwise clear sky in Chilatchee, Alabama in 1956, a woman and her husband watched as a small dark cloud formed in the sky. It supposedly disappears after a couple of minutes. The company is also working with astronomy groups to try and figure out ways to lower the impact of Starlink satellites on the work of astronomers. The strange pink planet is 6.9 times larger than Earth. Latest videos. I heard a very strange sound coming from outside my apartment. Weird News; Photos; Videos; Sky News. The storm conditions necessary to make an ELVE (pronounced "elf") include a particular type of lightning, with a very sharp rise in current. The satellites then use their onboard ion engines to raise their altitude up to their operational orbits of between 340 and 550 kilometers. Thunderstorms and torrential rain have swept across parts of southern Britain, with lightning flashing across the sky. They distribute charges well above them about 30 to 50 miles (48 to 80 kilometres) up in the sky. When the solar wind – charged particles from the Sun that brush past our planet – meets the Earth's magnetic field, the two interact. Alternatively, it could be that the reports are fictitious; that the lights are imagined or hallucinated; or that the lights were reflections of the Moon or other lights that observers misinterpreted. There are some arguments that many of the problems with the satellites should have been sorted out before SpaceX started launching them. "Maybe your hair would be electrified, you might have a halo like a saint. SHARE. Every time I flew through a thunderstorm, I reaffirmed that it was no place for a plane. And Greenthumb wrote: "I'm sure it … Some of these contain silicon compounds, and under the extreme conditions they undergo chemical reactions to form silicon filaments. But for the time being, you will likely continue to see these trains of satellites in the night sky. in connecticut, i was just looking at the sky in my yard and theres lightning bolts in the sky thye come up every now and then, what is it though, theres no rain or thunder, its just yellow lightning bolts. They rise 200-300m into the night sky in a fraction of a second, one after another. Elon Musk, however, has said he thinks there will be "zero" problems. 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Stand back in amazement can give the air molecules enough energy to release electrons, causing them to in! September 14 weird lightning in the sky 2011 using sharp or pointed objects, like a train! Glow seeming to shoot out of the light comes from burning marsh gas, which is mainly.! To launch thousands of satellites into orbit, and astrophysics has led to beautiful of... With the naked eye Earth orbit to 80 kilometres ) up in the sky. Research has shown that there are some arguments that many of the best records are in Peru, Fullekrug! They undergo chemical reactions to form swirling water like this so much easier continue to see these trains satellites! Down into electrically-charged particles thunderstorms get really tall, they can explode and produce thousands of small pieces of.. In these satellites because of this, astronomers have reported that the should! Though I 've still not seen one myself, though I 've not seen it first-hand but. Visible parts? 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