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A gigantic jet caught on camera: A spritacular moment for NASA astronaut
- lfaw 1y agolarger photo, with explanations: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gigantic_jet_photographed_by_Nichole_Ayers_on_the_International_Space_Station,_some_edits.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gigantic_jet_photogr...
- NoSalt 1y agoWhat is that, an image for ants??? I absolutely cannot stand it when a site, especially a government site, doesn't post the original, high resolution, images. However, it seems like it's an archeological expedition to find the high resolution, high quality image.
- frereubu 1y agoFor those too lazy to go digging: https://cdn.xcancel.com/pic/orig/7498ED4A7CB57/media%2FGu8ksxHWYAAyHEq.jpg https://cdn.xcancel.com/pic/orig/7498ED4A7CB57/media%2FGu8ks... Original tweet: https://xcancel.com/Astro_Ayers/status/1940810789830451563 https://xcancel.com/Astro_Ayers/status/1940810789830451563
- waltwalther 1y agoThank you!
- bilekas 1y agoThank you, I don't think it's too unreasonable when talking about an amazing image to link to the image in the article to be fair.
- th0ma5 1y agoSurely X isn't the sole source for this?
- stronglikedan 1y agoSure, why not? It's the sole source for a lot of things, just like reddit is the sole source for a lot of other things, so why go anywhere else?
- antonvs 1y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/05/racism-misogyny-lies-how-did-x-become-so-full-of-hatred-and-is-it-ethical-to-keep-using-it https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/05/r...
- MisterTea 1y ago> Sure, why not? People like me who have never used twitter. It makes no sense to spread this information across platforms.
- notyourwork 1y agoYou don’t have to use twitter (I don’t).
- MisterTea 1y agoBut how would one know to look there for the high resolution image?
- js2 1y agoA link to an even higher resolution image was posted hours earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44937613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44937613 https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2025/07/Nichole-Ayers-Sprite1.jpeg https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2025/07/Nichole-Ayers-S...
- araes 1y agoFrom lfaw explanation linked below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44939514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44939514 "The phenomenon took place at roughly 29°N 101.5°W over Coahuila, Mexico." That's ~50 miles from the Ciudad Acuña / Del Rio border crossing with Texas.
- porphyra 1y agoAlso all the social media links are wrong lol. I clicked on the instagram link to "nasascience" expecting to find a higher quality photo and it turned out to be some random Turkish dude with 3 posts and 1 follower.
- mclau157 1y agoNASA astronauts on board Expedition 44...didn't expect flashbacks like that
- 1970-01-01 1y agoThat title made me think someone snapped a picture of something like a Spirit A320 cruising at max altitude. They are bright yellow and would stand out in a photo.
- -peregrine- 1y ago[dead]
- adolph 1y agoPreviously on HN, same topic and link to Ayers' photo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44480363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44480363 Additional info about TLEs: https://paulmsmithphotography.com/pages/what-are-red-sprites-blue-jets-and-other-transient-luminous-events https://paulmsmithphotography.com/pages/what-are-red-sprites...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ericwood 1y agoAll of this and the only image linked is a collage clocking in at a whopping 512x218px...anyone know where we can see the full resolution? It looks spectacular from the thumbnail!
- amelius 1y agoLooks like the PR team didn't care much about the whole thing.
- diggernet 1y agoYeah, annoying. This one is better: https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2025/07/Nichole-Ayers-Sprite1.jpeg https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2025/07/Nichole-Ayers-S...
- benjiro 1y agoWhat amazes me more then the jet, is the amount of light pollution from the cities.
- jacquesm 1y agoYes, and that influence reaches far outside of the cities themselves. I only realized this after moving to rural Canada where on a clear night you would see the sky in a way that you could never see it within 30 km of any major city. It is hard to describe in words, you'd have to go up North during a cold winter night and lay down and stare upwards.
- pavel_lishin 1y agoYeah - sitting on a porch near Newark, NJ, the sky is a bright hazy dome overhead. It reminds me of growing up in a big city, too - walking along, looking at the multi-colored clouds above me.
- the_arun 1y agoThese are cool too, but sprites over himalayas - https://x.com/DarshanRajguru5/status/1940829392269463943 https://x.com/DarshanRajguru5/status/1940829392269463943
- userbinator 1y agoTook me a bit of time to realise this wasn't about spotting a plane from the ISS... which is apparently possible but difficult: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3243916/Can-spot-plane-ISS-astronaut-captures-remarkable-image-single-aircraft-seen-250-miles-Earth.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3243916/Can-...
- rehevkor5 1y ago+1 thought they had caught an image of a Spirit airlines plane...
- baaym 1y agoThe image this is about: https://x.com/Astro_Ayers/status/1940810789830451563 https://x.com/Astro_Ayers/status/1940810789830451563
- mkl 1y agohttps://xcancel.com/Astro_Ayers/status/1940810789830451563 https://xcancel.com/Astro_Ayers/status/1940810789830451563 to see replies.
- memonkey 1y agowhy is it red?
- somat 1y agoBest guess, high altitude atomic oxygen. Based on the wikipedia aurora article it sounds like the lower atmosphere has a more mixed bag of gasses, so it glows white, while in the upper atmosphere atomic oxygen(note that oxygen lower down is all diatomic and glows green) is able to showcase it's characteristic red glow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora#Colours_and_wavelengths_of_auroral_light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora#Colours_and_wavelengths... But now I am wondering about the green(oxygen?) and yellow(sodium?) atmospheric bands visable. The green one is interesting because it may tear apart my atomic oxygen theory. why would a green diatomic band be above the red atomic sprite flare?
- abakker 1y agoPecosHank on YouTube has a great video on TLEs and how to photograph them from the ground. I think the green is oxygen and the red is nitrogen, same as in the aurora.
- throwaway290 1y agoI wonder where this thunderstorm was and when!
- mkl 1y ago3 July, near the border between Mexico and Texas: https://xcancel.com/Astro_Ayers/status/1940810789830451563 https://xcancel.com/Astro_Ayers/status/1940810789830451563
- GarnetFloride 1y agoPilot had been reporting things like that for years but nobody would believe them because they weren't "trained observers", until a pilot caught it on film in the 80's. Same with sailors, who've been repairing rogue waves for centuries, but it wasn't until it was recorded scientifically on an oil rig that scientists took it seriously. Still an awesome picture.
- soupfordummies 1y agoI saw something weird on a red-eye recently that maybe someone can explain: We were going over a pretty rural area. I saw what looked like the fan of headlights but in these large marbleized shapes like large lightning-crackles. They just sort of moved across the ground and then fizzled out. The movement patterns would be kind of like clouds dissipating but it definitely looked like lights? Very weird.
- bufbupa 1y agoSomething like ball lightning? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning
- zamadatix 1y agoAs Adam Savage famously said (though I'm sure he was far from the first): "Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down." The quote is a bit of an oversimplification, i.e. "writing it down" isn't all there is to the scientific method, but the core idea something wasn't science until the scientific method was applied is both a tautology and a good thing.
- dkga 1y agoIn 1995 or 1997, can't remember which, I flew from Belo Horizonte to Miami (if the former) or NYC (latter). When we were flying over what I think is the Caribbean, I recall seeing "upward lightnings". They were absolutely majestic. I was absolutely awaken. I don't remember much else as I was a kid but seeing this text made me come back to this beautiful memory.
- mkl 1y agoSome discussion in a thread about a topically related article a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44480363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44480363
- voytec 1y ago> depositing a significant amount of electrical charge Unsatisfying description but I guess we don't yet know if it's any close to 1.21 jigawatts.