LOOK: Sprites Dancing in the Dark Night by Wang Xin
For this photograph, Wang Xin won the Royal Meteorological Society’s Standard Chartered Weather Photographer of the Year 2024. The society provides this description:
As multiple thunderstorms raged around Shanghai, Xin traveled to the Chongming District and adopted a trial-and-error approach by setting up the camera and waiting. After a few hours, a “faint red figure” flashed in Xin’s eyes, and this remarkable image was captured. The elusive sprites only last a few milliseconds, so Xin used a four-second exposure to achieve this photo.
Sprites occur due to electrical discharge, but unlike ordinary lightning, they occur well above cumulonimbus clouds, approximately 50 miles above the ground, in a layer of the atmosphere known as the mesosphere. Due to their fleeting nature, sprites are still not well understood, but they have been observed to occur after a strong, positive lightning bolt between the cloud and ground. The red color comes from changes in the energy of the electrons of nitrogen atoms high in the atmosphere.
LISTEN: “Angels from the Realms of Glory” | Words by James Montgomery, 1816 | Music by Henry Thomas Smart, 1867 | Performed by Hunter Fraser on Fraser Family Christmas, vol. 1, 2022
Angels from the realms of glory,
wing your flight o’er all the earth;
ye who sang creation’s story,
now proclaim Messiah’s birth.Refrain:
Come and worship, come and worship,
worship Christ, the newborn king.Shepherds, in the field abiding,
watching o’er your flocks by night:
God with man is now residing;
yonder shines the infant light. [Refrain]Sages, leave your contemplations;
brighter visions beam afar.
Seek the great Desire of nations;
ye have seen his natal star. [Refrain]Saints before the altar bending,
watching long in hope and fear:
Suddenly the Lord, descending,
in his temple shall appear. [Refrain]
Art & Theology 