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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
The most otherworldly, mysterious forms of lightning on Earth
Our atmosphere is like one big electrical circuit: Thunderstorms are the batteries that charge it up, and lightning is the current flowing through it. On the ground we see evidence of this circuit when lightning cracks and strikes the ground, or when it lights up deep inside a thundercloud, but high above the clouds lies a secret electrical zoo full of sprites, elves, and jets. These fantastical terms refer to light displays called transient luminous events or TLEs that occur in Earth's upper atmosphere during thunderstorms. 'TLEs are mysterious, beautiful, and uniquely different from conventional lightning, yet they connect weather, space, and electricity in one dramatic moment. They occur high above the clouds, almost silently, and are invisible to most people—but they reflect powerful processes unfolding deep within thunderstorms,' says Hailiang Huang, a Ph.D. student at the University of Science and Technology of China who studies TLEs. The very first photographic observations of these events in 1989 captured red flashes streaking across the sky in the blink of an eye. The displays were dubbed red sprites, inspired by characters in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a medley of other fairytale names followed, as researchers discovered new types of TLEs. Today, scientists are still working to understand these curious phenomena—what causes them, how often they happen, and what they can tell us about Earth's atmosphere. Just like storm chasing, some photographers have taken to sprite chasing, searching for elusive red sprites and other TLEs above nighttime thunderstorms. (See rare colorful lightning sprites dance above a hurricane.) Red sprites have been observed off the coast of Europe and over the U.S. Great Plains, but in 2022, astrophotographers Angel An and Shuchang Dong captured 105 red sprites, the largest number ever seen in a single thunderstorm in South Asia, researchers recently reported in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Science. 'Red sprites are the most iconic [of TLEs],' says Huang, the lead author of the paper. They flash into existence for just a fraction of a second in a spindly root-like system of red streaks. The phenomenon is caused by positive lightning that strikes the ground, creating an electric field that reaches up into the atmosphere, about 50 to 90 kilometers above Earth. On the Tibetan Plateau, north of the Himalayas, thunderstorms are very common. The dramatic changes in elevation produce intense convection in the atmosphere and the churning of wet air creates clouds—a rich laboratory for studying TLEs. Yet none had been recorded there until An and Dong's storm imagery in 2022. Huang and his collaborator Gaopeng Lu, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Science and Technology of China, developed a method to synchronize the videos and photos that An and Dong took on the Tibetan Plateau. Using satellite data and maps of the stars in the night sky to determine the timestamps of each video frame, the team linked around 70 percent of verified sprites to the parent lightning that triggered them. To Huang, the results demonstrate the scientific value of amateur observations. 'It's exciting that this field brings together professional scientists and passionate amateurs, working side by side to understand something so ephemeral, yet so profound.' Not only did the photographers capture a significant number of red sprites, the Himalayan storm also featured even rarer TLEs called jets and ghosts. The team found 16 secondary jets, powerful columns of often blue or purple light darting upwards into the sky, and at least four ghosts, green hazy glows that can sometimes hover above red sprites. 'While sprites [and other TLEs] may appear delicate and silent in the upper atmosphere, they are often linked to powerful, sometimes devastating weather systems,' says Huang. 'Understanding them not only satisfies our curiosity about the upper atmosphere, but also helps us learn more about the storms we face here on Earth.' (Here's the science behind the world's strongest lightning strikes.) Different types of TLEs vary based on altitude, the type of lightning at play, and the chemicals present in that part of the atmosphere, but the exact causes of each type of TLE are yet to be confirmed. Since 2022, NASA's Spritacular project has tried to capture this variety, also relying on data from amateurs—hundreds of citizen scientists. 'I had been seeing wonderful images captured by the public all around the globe, shared sporadically over the internet and the science community was mostly unaware of these captures,' says Burcu Kosar, an atmospheric physicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center who leads the project. 'Spritacular was born to bridge this gap, connecting the public with the science community, by creating the first crowdsourced database of sprites and other TLEs.' Spritacular invites volunteers to submit images they've captured of TLEs all around the world, and they've collected over 700 submissions from almost 900 users across 20 different countries. Participants can also help comb through the database, identifying sprites from users' images or those collected from the International Space Station. The project aims to collect a broad data set of recorded TLEs, since most of the previous sightings have only been one-offs. If they can collect a large enough amount of observations, then Kosar and her team can start to identify patterns and trends in the data and also study rarer TLEs like ghosts and jets. Understanding TLEs on Earth could also inform our investigations of other planets. Data from NASA's Juno mission suggests that sprites and mysterious rings of light called elves also occur in Jupiter's atmosphere. (Does lightning strike on Venus?) Since TLEs are so fleeting in nature, Kosar and her collaborator József Bór, a TLE researcher at the Institute of Earth Physics and Space Science in Hungary, agree that their project's strength lies in the people of Spritacular. 'I think it is the power of the community which makes Spritacular very strong for TLE-related scientific work,' says Bór. The community effort that drives TLE research could help answer one of the most pressing questions around sprites and other TLEs—how climate change may impact their occurrence. 'Rising global temperatures due to climate change will impact thunderstorm intensity and frequency, this will also lead to stronger lightning activity, all of which are precursors for TLE activity,' says Kosar. 'Details are still an active area of research, but studying TLEs could become even more important for tracking how our atmosphere is changing.' Working with climate and space scientists to understand how changing storm patterns might influence TLE activity globally is next up for the Chinese team, too. For Huang, it's an exciting field to be part of: 'It feels like exploring an atmospheric frontier. Every observation is like capturing a rare and fleeting signal from the edge of space—visually stunning and physically meaningful.'
National Geographic
4 days ago
- Science
- National Geographic
The most otherworldly, mysterious forms of lightning on Earth
Red spites, a type of transient luminous event or TLE, appear in the upper atmosphere above a thunderstorm in Oklahoma in April 2025. Our atmosphere is like one big electrical circuit: Thunderstorms are the batteries that charge it up, and lightning is the current flowing through it. On the ground we see evidence of this circuit when lightning cracks and strikes the ground, or when it lights up deep inside a thundercloud, but high above the clouds lies a secret electrical zoo full of sprites, elves, and jets. These fantastical terms refer to light displays called transient luminous events or TLEs that occur in Earth's upper atmosphere during thunderstorms. 'TLEs are mysterious, beautiful, and uniquely different from conventional lightning, yet they connect weather, space, and electricity in one dramatic moment. They occur high above the clouds, almost silently, and are invisible to most people—but they reflect powerful processes unfolding deep within thunderstorms,' says Hailiang Huang, a Ph.D. student at the University of Science and Technology of China who studies TLEs. The very first photographic observations of these events in 1989 captured red flashes streaking across the sky in the blink of an eye. The displays were dubbed red sprites, inspired by characters in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a medley of other fairytale names followed, as researchers discovered new types of TLEs. Today, scientists are still working to understand these curious phenomena—what causes them, how often they happen, and what they can tell us about Earth's atmosphere. Red sprites, like these captured in December 2024 in Mississippi, are by far the most common TLE observed by both researchers and photographers. A photographer snapped this image of red sprite lightning in June 2023 in Kansas. Some have described the flashes as looking like carrots or jellyfish. Just like storm chasing, some photographers have taken to sprite chasing, searching for elusive red sprites and other TLEs above nighttime thunderstorms. (See rare colorful lightning sprites dance above a hurricane.) Red sprites have been observed off the coast of Europe and over the U.S. Great Plains, but in 2022, astrophotographers Angel An and Shuchang Dong captured 105 red sprites, the largest number ever seen in a single thunderstorm in South Asia, researchers recently reported in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Science. 'Red sprites are the most iconic [of TLEs],' says Huang, the lead author of the paper. They flash into existence for just a fraction of a second in a spindly root-like system of red streaks. The phenomenon is caused by positive lightning that strikes the ground, creating an electric field that reaches up into the atmosphere, about 50 to 90 kilometers above Earth. On the Tibetan Plateau, north of the Himalayas, thunderstorms are very common. The dramatic changes in elevation produce intense convection in the atmosphere and the churning of wet air creates clouds—a rich laboratory for studying TLEs. Yet none had been recorded there until An and Dong's storm imagery in 2022. Huang and his collaborator Gaopeng Lu, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Science and Technology of China, developed a method to synchronize the videos and photos that An and Dong took on the Tibetan Plateau. Using satellite data and maps of the stars in the night sky to determine the timestamps of each video frame, the team linked around 70 percent of verified sprites to the parent lightning that triggered them. To Huang, the results demonstrate the scientific value of amateur observations. 'It's exciting that this field brings together professional scientists and passionate amateurs, working side by side to understand something so ephemeral, yet so profound.' Not only did the photographers capture a significant number of red sprites, the Himalayan storm also featured even rarer TLEs called jets and ghosts. The team found 16 secondary jets, powerful columns of often blue or purple light darting upwards into the sky, and at least four ghosts, green hazy glows that can sometimes hover above red sprites. 'While sprites [and other TLEs] may appear delicate and silent in the upper atmosphere, they are often linked to powerful, sometimes devastating weather systems,' says Huang. 'Understanding them not only satisfies our curiosity about the upper atmosphere, but also helps us learn more about the storms we face here on Earth.' (Here's the science behind the world's strongest lightning strikes.) A database of transient luminous events Different types of TLEs vary based on altitude, the type of lightning at play, and the chemicals present in that part of the atmosphere, but the exact causes of each type of TLE are yet to be confirmed. Since 2022, NASA's Spritacular project has tried to capture this variety, also relying on data from amateurs—hundreds of citizen scientists. 'I had been seeing wonderful images captured by the public all around the globe, shared sporadically over the internet and the science community was mostly unaware of these captures,' says Burcu Kosar, an atmospheric physicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center who leads the project. 'Spritacular was born to bridge this gap, connecting the public with the science community, by creating the first crowdsourced database of sprites and other TLEs.' In the U.S., transient luminous events have been seen above thunderstorms in the Great Plains and the Midwest. These were snapped in Kansas on June 19, 2020. Spritacular invites volunteers to submit images they've captured of TLEs all around the world, and they've collected over 700 submissions from almost 900 users across 20 different countries. Participants can also help comb through the database, identifying sprites from users' images or those collected from the International Space Station. The project aims to collect a broad data set of recorded TLEs, since most of the previous sightings have only been one-offs. If they can collect a large enough amount of observations, then Kosar and her team can start to identify patterns and trends in the data and also study rarer TLEs like ghosts and jets. Understanding TLEs on Earth could also inform our investigations of other planets. Data from NASA's Juno mission suggests that sprites and mysterious rings of light called elves also occur in Jupiter's atmosphere. (Does lightning strike on Venus?) Since TLEs are so fleeting in nature, Kosar and her collaborator József Bór, a TLE researcher at the Institute of Earth Physics and Space Science in Hungary, agree that their project's strength lies in the people of Spritacular. 'I think it is the power of the community which makes Spritacular very strong for TLE-related scientific work,' says Bór. How climate might impact TLEs The community effort that drives TLE research could help answer one of the most pressing questions around sprites and other TLEs—how climate change may impact their occurrence. 'Rising global temperatures due to climate change will impact thunderstorm intensity and frequency, this will also lead to stronger lightning activity, all of which are precursors for TLE activity,' says Kosar. 'Details are still an active area of research, but studying TLEs could become even more important for tracking how our atmosphere is changing.' Working with climate and space scientists to understand how changing storm patterns might influence TLE activity globally is next up for the Chinese team, too. For Huang, it's an exciting field to be part of: 'It feels like exploring an atmospheric frontier. Every observation is like capturing a rare and fleeting signal from the edge of space—visually stunning and physically meaningful.'
Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
China's innovative perovskite film boosts LED brightness, extends lifespan
Perovskite, a high-performance material known for its luminous efficiency, low cost, and processing flexibility—with broad potential in solar cells, LEDs, and photodetectors—has traditionally faced a major challenge: inefficient recombination of electrons and holes, the charge carriers responsible for light emission. Now, Chinese researchers are claiming to have achieved a major breakthrough in this regard. Led by Professor Xiao Zhengguo, a research team at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei has developed a novel method for fabricating all-inorganic perovskite films with larger crystal grains and improved heat resistance, paving the way for more durable and efficient perovskite LEDs. According to Xiao, the innovation boosted LED brightness to 1.16 million nits and extended the operational lifespan beyond 180,000 hours—overcoming a long-standing bottleneck that prevented perovskite LEDs from achieving both high efficiency and stability, and opening the door for their potential use in advanced displays and ultra-high-brightness lighting, state-owned news agency Xinhua reported. To enhance luminous efficiency, earlier efforts focused on creating ultra-small nanoparticles or extremely thin material layers. However, this approach came with major limitations—LEDs produced with these methods struggled to reach high brightness and often had lifespans of just a few hours, making them unsuitable for real-world applications. Rather than relying on conventional approaches, the research team took a fundamentally different path to overcome the limitations of previous perovskite materials. By carefully introducing specially selected compounds into the perovskite composition and subjecting the material to a high-temperature annealing process, scientists were able to engineer a new type of perovskite film. This advanced film features much larger crystal grains, which help facilitate better charge transport, and a substantially reduced number of defects, both of which are critical factors in enhancing the overall performance, stability, and longevity of perovskite LEDs. Xiao explained that the novel perovskite material's enhanced internal structural order is crucial for significantly improving both the brightness and stability of the LEDs. The research also showed that the luminous efficiency of this new perovskite LED surpassed 22%, putting it on par with existing commercial display products and signaling a major advancement in LED technology. In comparison with typical commercial OLED and LED screens currently available, the new perovskite LED achieves a notably high brightness of over a million nits. This level of brightness could make it well-suited for applications requiring strong visibility, such as outdoor displays and specialized lighting. Typically, everyday displays reach peak brightness levels of just a few thousand nits. When operating at a more common brightness level of 100 nits, the new perovskite LED demonstrates a theoretical lifespan of close to 200,000 hours—well within the range needed to meet commercial LED product standards. As noted by the scientific team, this extended durability not only ensures long-term reliability of their innovation, but also highlights the material's potential for practical, everyday use in a variety of display and lighting applications.
South China Morning Post
16-06-2025
- Science
- South China Morning Post
Light fantastic: China unlocks lifespan potential of next-gen LED
Scientists in China have unlocked the potential of a radical new type of LED technology that could potentially revolutionise a key component of today's electronic devices, making them highly energy efficient, more luminous – and possibly cheaper. Advertisement Until now, widespread commercial adoption of the perovskite light-emitting diode (PeLED) has been hindered by one major roadblock: it tends to be unstable, leading to a short lifespan. But this week, researchers published a study that showed how the lifespan of a PeLED could be extended to more than 20 years at a comparable brightness to commercial displays. The best PeLEDs currently last for an average of a few thousand hours. 'Our work is a new approach for designing efficient, bright and stable PeLEDs for real applications,' the team from the University of Science and Technology of China, Fudan University, and Nanjing Tech University said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on Wednesday. Using an alternative method to prepare perovskite – a class of photosensitive semiconducting materials – the team's PeLEDs reached a brightness of 1.16 million nits, far exceeding the brightest commercial display screens, which usually cap out at several thousand nits. Nits are a unit of measurement used to quantify the brightness of electronic displays. Advertisement When operating at 100 nits, which meets the standard of some commercial LED products, the team's new PeLEDs had a theoretical lifespan of more than 185,000 hours, or around 21 years. PeLEDs that are both durable and efficient could be used in commercial applications to create low-cost, ultra-bright lighting and high-end display screens.
BBC News
04-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Scientists create contact lenses that can help us see in the dark
A team of scientists from China have created contact lenses that can help people to see in the new lenses allow people to see infrared light, which is normally invisible to the human technology has been around for a while, in the form of things like night-vision goggles, however, these are quite heavy and need power to Tian Xue, a scientist at the University of Science and Technology of China, said their work could help to inspire a range of contact lenses, glasses and other wearable devices that give people "super-vision", as well as helping people with optical conditions like colour blindness. Why can we see some things and not others? There are seven types of electromagnetic (EM) waves, made of light, sound and radiation, which are part of something called the Electromagnetic can only see 'visible light', but there are lots of other types like radio waves, ultraviolet light and infrared light, which we cannot scientists have developed technology like sonar which helps us to see sound, and night-vision cameras which help us to see infrared light using temperature. How do the infrared contact lenses work? The team of scientists created contact lenses that have engineered nanoparticles in are tiny microscopic structures that are made up of a few engineered nanoparticles absorb and change near infrared light into blue, green and red light, which is visible to the human experiments to test out the lenses, people said they could see signals flashed from an infrared light, and could tell what direction the light came well as this, people said their infrared vision improved when they closed their could be because our eyelids help to block visible light more than infrared, so there was less visible light to the scientists have said that the lenses are not quite sensitive enough to see low levels of infrared light, so they do not give complete thermal vision yet, but the team hope that future work can help to improve the technology.
