The United Daily News reported on the 3rd that Wang Tong, president of the university’s astronomy club, set up a camera on the roof of a men’s dormitory on campus to film red sprites. The first success came on the night of May 27, followed by September 13 and 22, for three captures over the May-to-September observing period.

Red sprites are electrical discharges that occur roughly 50 to 90 kilometers above thunderstorms and last only a few milliseconds to a few dozen milliseconds. The paper explained that the red glow comes from radiation emitted by excited nitrogen molecules. They are so brief that a high-sensitivity camera is needed to catch them.

Light From Storms Hundreds of Kilometers Away

All three events were linked to thunderstorms hundreds of kilometers from campus. According to the United Daily News, they were analyzed as connected to storms around Fuzhou, off the coast of Wenzhou, and north of Shantou. In effect, the camera recorded upper-atmosphere discharges triggered by lightning in the sky across the Taiwan Strait.

The third clip in particular shows an ‘angel sprite,’ extending downward and resembling a fish tail or an inverted V. The paper said such structures have mostly been observed at higher latitudes such as Europe and Japan, and catching one in Taiwan is very rare. How they form is still under study.

Professor Liu Cheng-yen, quoted in the article, said the successive red sprites looked like dancing above the clouds. He added that the red glow in the upper region suggests discharge current may reach the lower edge of the ionosphere, important evidence for studying the electrical circuit between thunderstorms and the ionosphere. Professor Kuo Cheng-ling said the three photos show different forms, which helps research on how sprite altitude relates to electron density in the mesosphere. The two professors’ exact affiliations are not confirmed in the article summary we reviewed.