HR: 0830h
AN: ED51C-1202    [PDF]
TI: The Hundred Year Hunt for the Red Sprite
AU: * Lyons, W A
EM: walyons@frii.com
AF: FMA Research, Inc., 46050 Weld County Road 13, Fort Collins, CO 80524 United States
AU: Schmidt, M
EM: Mickey.Schmidt@usafa.af.mil
AF: USAF Academy Planetarium, Center for Educational Multimedia, USAF Academy, CO 80840 United States
AB: This presentation reviews an NSF Informal Science Education project directed by the PO of an ongoing NSF Physical Meteorology/Aeronomy-sponsored research program on red sprites. For over 100 years, anecdotal reports and citations in the literature have persisted of strange luminous apparitions occurring high above thunderstorms. They were long discounted by the scientific community - until 1989, when by pure chance, a video revealed two giant pillars of light extending tens of kilometers above a thunderstorm. Since then, thousands of events, now called sprites, have been imaged, many by the PI. Mesospheric sprites, at 40 to 90 km altitude, are induced by lightning discharges having highly unusual characteristics. Science is now gradually unraveling the nature of the giant lightning discharges which spawn sprites. In the process we have found even more unusual electrical discharges above thunderstorms, suggesting that many new discoveries await to be made. We produced and are distributing a planetarium DVD/video program (42 minutes length) entitled, "The Hundred Year Hunt for the Red Sprite." It documents the application of the scientific method to unraveling this century old mystery surrounding strange lights in the night sky. We also contrasted this story of discovery to the pseudo-science prevalent today in topics such as UFOs. With distribution to numerous planetaria and science centers, we believe over 200,000 persons will eventually view this program (which has won three major video production awards). Our long term goal is to inspire planetarium visitors to undertake their own self-directed learning programs. A companion educational web site (www.Sky-Fire.TV) allows students and adults sufficiently motivated by the planetarium experience to further investigate sprites and related basic science topics. The highly interactive web site challenges visitors to test their knowledge of sprites and lightning by participating in an on-line 20 question quiz game, which provides instant feed back and scoring. Visitors, encouraged to actively search the sky for these fleeting phenomena, have already reported a number of highly unusual events of potential scientific value.
UR: http://www.Sky-Fire.TV
DE: 1704 Atmospheric sciences
DE: 3324 Lightning
DE: 6605 Education
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting