A thunderstorm (illustration) -

SOLENT NEWS SIPA

  • On the night of October 16 to 17, the Taranis satellite will take off from Kourou aboard the Vega launcher.

  • Equipped with many instruments, this satellite designed by CNES and 100% made in France, observes the light phenomena that occur during thunderstorms.

  • Thanks to this mission, scientists hope to learn more about elves, leprechauns and sylphs, all of these luminous phenomena with sometimes still mysterious microphysics.

Our distant ancestors thought they symbolized the wrath of God, the wrath of Thor or Zeus against men.

Since Benjamin Franklin's kite, which uncovered the electric nature of lightning, scientists have made enormous progress on the nature of thunderstorms.

But they do not yet know all the facets.

In particular concerning these flashes of light which occur a few tens of kilometers above our heads.

To work to lift part of the veil on what specialists call “transient light events” (TLE), on the night of November 16 to 17, the Taranis satellite will be sent into space.

No bigger than a washing machine, this little gem of made in France technology will scrutinize from above what observers find it difficult to observe from the floor.

Elves, sylphs, angels, leprechauns, jets, goblins (sprites in English) or gnomes ... https://t.co/2jtYNQekCE The Taranis satellite must take off from Kourou on the night of Nov 16-17 to study all these luminous phenomena that occur above thunderstorms. @ CNRS @CEA_Officiel @CNES pic.twitter.com/2ijCprwUiw

- Alain Schuhl (@AlainSchuhl) November 9, 2020

They will try to decipher the physical mechanisms of the red sprite (pixie in English), blue jet, sylphs and other elves.

Until the early 1990s, these atmospheric manifestations, with shapes as varied as their names, were little known.

Thunderstorms were considered to be a phenomenon limited to the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere that extends up to 10-15 km above sea level.

Understand the microphysics of these phenomena

With the discovery of sprites, a sort of glowing fireworks display that occurs at an altitude of 80 km above the layer of clouds, “we realized that thunderstorms interact with all the layers of the atmosphere and even up to the near space environment of the Earth ”, explains Jean-Louis Pincon of the Laboratory of Physics and Chemistry of the Environment and Space (CNRS, CNES, Univ Orléans), a stakeholder in the Taranis project since his launched several years ago.

Above the large storm clouds, little-known light phenomena sometimes occur.

Elves, leprechauns, giant jets ... They will soon be closely studied by the satellite 🛰️🇫🇷 Taranis!


📸 Stéphane Vetterhttps: //t.co/YXqpTE438n pic.twitter.com/QFG1mg3v7d

- CNES (@CNES) June 27, 2020

But difficult to understand these phenomena which last less than a second and are almost impossible to see with the naked eye, but which we now know are very frequent.

At the time when scientists discovered these elves and other elves, "we realized that thunderstorms could function as particle accelerators and give rise to bursts of gamma radiation", continues Jean-Louis Pincon.

It is to better understand these phenomena, the physics of thunderstorms and to see their impact on the physics and chemistry of the upper atmosphere that justified the Taranis mission.

If we know why they appear disconnected from thunderstorms, their complex microphysics remains mysterious, and yet it is this which will qualify the way in which energy is distributed over km3.

The satellite, designed and produced in-house by the Center national d'études spatiales in Toulouse, took more than fifteen years to emerge between the start of studies and its launch next week.

“The operation will also be done in Toulouse by the control center.

We also had all the instruments developed with the laboratories and the CEA, ”explains Christophe Bastien-Thiry, head of this project at CNES, which cost 115 million euros.

For four years, Taranis will use all his instruments to record magnetic and electric fields, gamma ray flashes, thermal plasma and energetic particles.

And we will reveal the hidden face of the angels, leprechauns and other elves who inhabit the sky when thunderstorms rumble.

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