National Geographic
When you hear the word "lightning," it probably conjures an image of a bright white bolt, zigzagging down out of a stormy sky. But in Earth's upper atmosphere, lightning can look very different. Transient luminous events—TLEs—are lightning that occur high above the clouds and can look like red branching roots, green glows, or blue or purple darting lights. Captured photographically for the first time in 1989, scientists are now able to crowdsource images of TLEs from all over the world and hope to use these images to start identifying patterns in these mysterious electrical phenomena. Read more about what causes TLEs at the link in bio. Photographs by Paul Smith (@paulmsmithphotography)
18 hours ago
Beautiful 🔥
1 days ago
What in the stranger things
1 days ago
Imagine what the ancients thought seeing this 😍
1 days ago
Beautiful. God’s natural fireworks in the sky!!
1 days ago
sprites. I’m happy to see Paul’s work has made it to NatGeo! ❤️
1 days ago
I love you Nat Geo. Thank you for making life, science, animals and learning fun.
1 days ago
@paulmsmithphotography You deserve this man! 👏👏👏 I’ve been wondering when @natgeo or @natgeoyourshot was going to publish some of these! Congratulations!
12 hours ago
Nice try Placidusax I know that’s you
19 hours ago
Look here I know astral plane when I see astral plane
1 days ago
🔥
15 hours ago
Elden Ring vibes 🔥😍
1 days ago
Gwi-ma
12 hours ago
@aliumeart nature spirit dancing ✨
13 hours ago
Whoah, this is amazing! I had never seen these before but I would love to photograph them 😍
15 hours ago
It’s the Upside Down ❤️