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 literature—take the net result of Tiraboshi, Warton, or Schlegel,—is a sum of a very few ideas, and of very few original tales,—all the rest being variation of these.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)