Astra scrubs return-to-flight rocket launch due to lightning risk

The private spaceflight startup Astra on Monday called off its first attempt to launch a rocket since a failed flight last month due to the risk of lightning at its Alaska liftoff site.  Astra scrubbed the attempted launch of its Astra-1 mission Monday (March 14) at Pad LP-3B at the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Alaska’s … Read more

1st sighting of ‘ball lightning’ in England uncovered

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Giles Gasper, Professor in High Medieval History, Durham University Brian Tanner, Emeritus Professor of Physics at Durham University, Durham University On June 7, 1195, a fiery spinning ball emerged from a dark cloud in an erstwhile sunny sky … Read more

NASA Says Tonga Eruption Sent Up Highest Ash Plumes Ever Captured by Satellite

When a volcano in Tonga erupted on January 15, it gave satellites their first glimpse at a plume of volcanic ash shooting into the mesosphere, the third layer of Earth’s atmosphere.   According to NASA, the Tonga event was the largest volcanic eruption since satellites began monitoring our planet. As the Pacific volcano shot a burst of ash … Read more

1st image from NASA’s new IXPE X-ray telescope looks like a ball of purple lightning

IXPE’s first science image shows the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A.  (Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/IXPE) NASA’s newly-launched X-ray hunting probe has snapped its first science image and — wow — it’s spectacular. The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) probe launched Dec. 9, 2021, on a mission to observe objects like black holes and neutron stars in X-ray … Read more

Purple space ‘lightning’ spews from stellar corpse, creating cosmic shock waves (photo, video)

A streak of purple “lightning” sprawls across the cosmos in a gorgeous new image from NASA. Light and energy twist and turn in an explosive relationship between a stellar corpse known as a white dwarf and a variable red giant star called R Aquarii (R Aqr) orbiting each other out in space. NASA’s Chandra X-ray … Read more

World-Record ‘Megaflash’ of Lightning Stretched Across The US For Almost 500 Miles

A jaw-dropping lightning megaflash that snaked across three states in the southern US just won a world record. A megaflash is not your standard cloud-to-ground lightning bolt. It’s an enormous electric zigzag that travels from one electrified cloud to the next, almost instantaneously.   A big enough thunderstorm system can allow a megaflash to cover hundreds of … Read more

Lightning flash measuring 768 kilometres is the longest ever recorded

Two record-breaking lightning flashes occurred in 2020: one with a length of 768 kilometres is the longest ever recorded, while another with a duration of 17 seconds is the longest-lasting flash ever detected Environment 1 February 2022 By Alex Wilkins Lightning on the Great Plains of North America Laura Hedien/Getty Images The world’s longest lightning … Read more