What are the mysterious red sprites and blue jets astronauts spot swishing over Earth from the ISS?

Do you ever think what it would look like staring out of a window 250 miles above Earth?

It is one of those POVs where storms look like glowing puzzle pieces, and lightning is no less than a cosmic light show exploding in colours not visible from the ground.

Astronauts witness these rare, mysterious bursts high in the sky, which resemble brightly coloured electric dances far beyond the roar of thunder.

What are the mysterious red sprites astronauts spot over Earth?

These are known as Transient Luminous Events (TLEs), often spotted as blue jets, red sprites, violet halos, and ultraviolet rings. They are brief, colourful bursts high above thunderstorms, up to 55 miles in the thin air, visible from the International Space Station (ISS).

Unlike ground-level lightning, these "electric fireworks" were once just pilot tales or rare photos, but ISS cameras now capture them frequently. According to NASA images shared on their site, they reveal how upper-atmosphere sparks can disrupt radios, threaten planes, and alter air chemistry.

The European Space Agency's Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM), mounted on the ISS since 2018, tracks flashes "smaller than a fingernail and shorter than a heartbeat" with high-speed cameras and photometers. ASIM data shows thundercloud discharges pumping energy into the ionosphere, creating enormous ELVES rings that charge areas for hundreds of miles, potentially scrambling long-distance radio, as detailed in ESA reports.

Red sprites or inverted jellyfish?

Red sprites dangle like "upside-down jellyfish" in the mesosphere for milliseconds, while blue jets stab silently from clouds toward the stratosphere. ASIM footage showed a blue jet's altitude beyond weather layers.

These slow-motion views show lightning branching wildly, confirming lab tests and strengthening grid warnings.

Are these sprites dangerous?

Certain lightning strikes trigger terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, delivering radiation doses to airplanes similar to a chest X-ray. JAXA's Light-1 CubeSat, deployed from the ISS, maps these over equatorial storms by syncing with ground networks to create a 3D hazard atlas.

Apart from this, TLEs disrupt ionospheric radio signals for submarines and aircraft, while moving chemicals like nitrogen oxides between atmospheric layers, which affects ozone levels and improves climate warming predictions.