History
Allusions to transient optical phenomena above thunderclouds can be found in anecdotal reports from as early as 1730 (see Johann Georg Estor). Nobel laureate C. T. R. Wilson had suggested in 1925, on theoretical grounds, that electrical breakdown could occur in the upper atmosphere, and in 1956 witnessed what possibly could have been a sprite. They were first documented photographically on July 6, 1989 when scientists from the University of Minnesota, using a low-light video camera, accidentally captured the first image of what would subsequently become known as a sprite. Several years after their discovery they were named sprites (air spirits) after their elusive nature. Since their 1989 discovery, sprites have been imaged tens of thousands of times, from the ground, from aircraft and from space, and have become the subject of intensive investigations.
Read more about this topic: Sprite (lightning)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)