Red Sprite Above the U.S.

From NASA's Earth Observatory:

Red Sprite Above the U.S. 

Viewing from a point over northwest Mexico, astronauts aboard the International Space Station looked northeast and shot this unusual photograph of a red sprite above the white light of an active thunderstorm. In the top image, the sprite was 2,200 kilometers (1,400 miles) away, high over Missouri or Illinois; the lights of Dallas, Texas appear in the foreground. The sprite shoots up to the greenish airglow layer, near a rising moon.

Read more at
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86463

See another image of a sprite at
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=78487

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