The Effect of Thunderstorms From Space on Earth

The International Space Station ISS is one of the agencies that analyze the atmosphere on earth today has a new task to analyze the thunderstorm in the upper atmosphere of Earth using the newly installed Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM).

Space Storm Hunter is a device composed of a collection of optical cameras, photometers, X-ray detectors, and gamma-ray detectors. The device will be used by scientists to learn some new things about how space storms affect Earth's climate, atmosphere, ionosphere, and radiation belts. This observation is expected to provide some extraordinary information.

This high-resolution observation allows us to study the events of a blur of cloudless storms, "said principal investigator Torsten Neubert of the National Space Institute of the Technical University of Denmark in a statement.

"With ASIM we can better understand the complex process of lightning storms from outer space against our atmosphere, which is also an element of ordinary lightning, although they take on different shapes. This understanding can improve technology to detect common lightning. "

The thunderstorms in the upper atmosphere are very different from the lightning flashes you see during a torrential rainstorm on a hot night. Instead, you will see a number of colored bursts of different electrical energy, known as sprites, elves, and giants.

flashes of light that appear high above the storm clouds or commonly known as Sprite usually appear as a light red or purple light. The red color comes from electrons that collide with nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere that ionize them. A single thunderstorm can produce several hundred Sprite at night.

At an altitude of 400 kilometers (248 miles) in low orbit, the ISS will be optimal in observing lightning storms from outer space in the atmosphere, typically below 100 kilometers (62 miles) in Earth's ionosphere, mesosphere and stratosphere. Observations made by the ISS include the tropical and subtropical regions of Earth that are the most intense form of lightning, which is difficult to access.

Neubert said that they would learn more about the storm clouds and the subtle structures of the stratosphere and the mesosphere, which are little known.

"This is a scientific work that has a powerful documentation for the first time on how active a storm cloud peak can be."