An illustration of what “sprites” may look like in Jupiter’s atmosphere NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI
Sprites and elves have been spotted dancing in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. These aren’t mystical beings, but two types of flashes of light called transient luminous events (TLEs), and it is the first time they have been seen on a planet other than Earth.
The unpredictable flashes were spotted by accident, when a team led by Rohini Giles at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, was looking through ultraviolet images collected by NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it orbits Jupiter.
Juno rotates to allow its…
