In 1989, researchers testing a camera in Minnesota accidentally filmed red flashes above a storm. Nobody had ever recorded them before

The accidental recording proved that powerful electrical discharges happen miles above active thunderstorms. By documenting these upper-atmosphere bursts on video, scientists sparked a global effort to track transient luminous events .

Red sprites form in the mesosphere between 50 and 90 kilometers, around 30 to 55 miles, above Earth. They appear as crimson columns or branching tendrils, lasting only a few milliseconds before fading. Powerful ground lightning triggers these high-altitude events by rapidly shifting the electric field above a thunderstorm. The sudden surge excites nitrogen molecules in thin air, creating a brief red glow.

Though sprites last only a fraction of a second, their physical dimensions can stretch across dozens of miles. These large electrical structures span swaths of the upper atmosphere during major storm events.