Image copyright ESA/NASA Image caption The ISS provides a unqiue perspective on Earth's weather

Thunderstorms are some of the most spectacular events in nature, yet what we can see from the surface of our planet is only the beginning.

There are bizarre goings on in Earth's upper atmosphere, and a new mission aims to learn more about them.

Launched to the International Space Station on Monday, the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) will observe the strange electrical phenomena that occur above thunderstorms.

Sky lab

Orbiting at an altitude of just over 400km, the ISS provides the perfect view of Earth's turbulent weather systems.

ASIM will be deployed aboard the station later this month.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption A series of thunderstorms as seen from the ISS

The electrifying effects of storms are frequently observed from the space station.

Yet when lightning strikes downward, something very different is happening above the cloud tops.

Known as Transient Luminous Events (TLEs), these unusual features were first spotted by accident in 1989.

Minnesota professor John R Winckler was testing a television camera in advance of an upcoming rocket launch, when he realised that two frames showed bright columns of light above a distant storm cloud.

Image copyright OTD/LIS, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Image caption Lightning strikes tend to concentrate over land masses

The discovery came as a shock to scientists at the time, according to Dr Torsten Neubert, ASIM's lead scientist.

"That really surprised all of us. How come this exists and we didn't know it? Airline pilots must have known about it - there are some anecdotal descriptions," the Technical University of Denmark physicist said.

For the better part of a century before TLEs were caught on camera, people who spotted them had been reporting "rocket lightning" or "upward lightning".

Now in need of names, the phenomena were christened sprites and elves because of their fleeting, mysterious nature.

Yet despite their diminutive monikers, these features are anything but small, and extend tens of kilometres into the atmosphere.

Sprites, elves and jets

So, what's causing these events?

"They are slightly different to lightning," Dr Neubert told BBC News. "It's a pulse of the electric field that travels up. For the sprite - when the atmosphere gets thin, the field can get a discharge."

Sprites appear milliseconds after a powerful cloud-to-ground lightning strike.

Elves, on the other hand, are caused by the electromagnetic pulse the strike produces. A brief, aurora-like expanding halo in the ionosphere, they occur too quickly to be spotted by the human eye and last less than a millisecond.

Although they are more elusive, "elves are incredibly well understood," says Dr Martin Fullekrug from the University of Bath.

They are the most common TLE, thought to occur twice as often as sprites.

Image copyright Jason Ahrns Image caption Sprites can last several milliseconds

Blue jets - upward electrical discharges from cloud tops - are the least well known.

"The jets are not very well studied because they're very faint. They're mainly blue. Also they're not necessarily associated with lightning. They pop up now and again and they're very mysterious," Dr Fullekrug added.

While elves are mainly spotted over warm ocean waters, sprites tend to occur over land.

North America, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa are all good places to see them.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen captured footage of rare blue jets from the ISS

But it is possible to spot sprites elsewhere.

A normal summer thunderstorm in the UK is about 10km wide. Sprites appear above mesoscale convective systems - storm complexes about 10 times larger.

"In Britain we also have [these storms] from time to time," explained Dr Fullekrug. "We're conducting research on one that happened in May last year. It produced a wonderful sequence of sprites [over Cornwall]."

The sprites were spotted by meteor observers, who had cameras trained on the sky to follow the trails of shooting stars.

Stormchasing from space

ASIM's main goals are to study the physics of TLEs, and the characteristics of thunderstorms that produce them.

The payload includes two cameras, which can capture 12 frames per second, plus X-ray and gamma ray detectors.

This will allow the international team of researchers, for many of whom this is the culmination of decades of work, to determine where in the cloud sprites or jets originate.

Image copyright Science Photo Library Image caption Sprites occur well above the cloud tops

With the aid of the European Space Agency, ASIM's minimum mission length is two years.

During this period, it is expected to observe a minimum of one TLE per day, although it is thought that they occur at least every minute, somewhere in the world.

For Dr Neubert, this will be an incredibly exciting time.

"We don't really know what's inside lightning. It happens so fast and it's so dangerous... it's hard to get to the real inside physics," he said.

In the thin upper atmosphere, TLEs are larger and easier to measure.

"To me," he added, "they represent a window to the inside of lightning."</s>A British-led mission demonstrating how to salvage potentially dangerous junk orbiting the Earth has successfully launched.

The blast off came less than a day after a Chinese space station broke up over the Pacific.

The RemoveDEBRIS satellite, to be deployed from the International Space Station (ISS), will carry a net for capturing space litter and a harpoon that can spear and haul in larger objects.

A Space X Falcon 9 rocket carrying the box-like craft took off from the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral, Florida at 9.30pm UK time on Monday.

RemoveDEBRIS is now on board a capsule heading for the ISS, where it is due to arrive on Wednesday morning.

It is designed and built by a consortium led by the University of Surrey and funded by the European Commission, and is the first practical attempt to try out clean-up technology.

The fiery demise of the Chinese space lab Tiangong-1 was a timely reminder of the growing hazard of space junk.

The defunct 10.4 metre long space craft, weighing 8.5 tonnes, re-entered the atmosphere at around 01.15 on Monday.

According to official reports it mostly broke up harmlessly above the South Pacific, but there is uncertainty about its precise fate.

Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in the US, tweeted that it appeared to have come down north-west of Tahiti.

Nasa tracks more than 20,000 pieces of debris larger than a cricket ball orbiting the Earth at speeds of up to 17,500mph.

There are an estimated 500,000 pieces the size of a marble or larger.

Although the chances are low, a collision between even a small object and a space craft carrying valuable equipment or a human crew would be disastrous.

On February 10 2009, a clapped-out Russian satellite collided with and destroyed the functioning Iridium communications satellite.

That collision added more than 2,000 extra pieces of trackable debris to the growing space junk inventory.

Professor Guglielmo Aglietti, director of the Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey, said: “It is important to remember that a few significant collisions have already happened.

“Therefore, to maintain the safety of current and future space assets, the issue of the control and reduction of the space debris has to be addressed.

“We believe the technologies we will be demonstrating with RemoveDEBRIS could provide feasible answers to the space junk problem – answers that could be used on future space missions in the very near future.”

In the first of a series of capture experiments, a net will be discharged to wrap around and ensnare a target CubeSat miniature satellite.

A second experiment will see a harpoon fired at a target plate.

Other tests of navigation and a large drag sail designed to slow down the RemoveDEBRIS space craft as it falls out of orbit, ensuring it burns up on re-entry, will also be carried out.

Science minister Sam Gyimah said: “Space debris is a growing concern so it’s great to see a British university and our innovative space sector leading the way in the search for solutions.”</s>GRIFFITH PARK (CBSLA) — All eyes were on the sky tonight searching for falling space junk. The Chinese space station crashed to Earth several hours ago.

Crystal Cruz visited the Griffith Observatory where the space watchers were trying to get a good view.

The Chinese space station, Tiangong broke through the atmosphere over the Southern Pacific Ocean Sunday afternoon.

The Chinese space station was as large as a bus and scientists expected the majority of it to burn up before hitting Earth.

Rocket scientist, Olympia LePoint was confident we all would be OK.

“In the atmosphere is several layers and it goes through literally fire and we have debris, metal, plastics burning up and disintegrating,” said LePoint.

“Space stations were not ever meant to be completely be in the atmosphere and stay in the atmosphere,” said LePoint. “Satellites are not even supposed to stay in the atmosphere forever. They do drop. This is something that is quite common for anything that we place to circulate around the Earth and be in its orbit.”

Some visitors at the Griffith Observatory wondered where pieces of Tiangong would land.

“I sure hope it doesn’t fall on my house,” said visitor Iyonna Rivers.

As technology advances, scientists hope space stations will be able to last in space for a lifetime.</s>In space, every gram of weight, every liter of oxygen, and every movement of the body has massive consequences. Which makes it no place for art, you’d think. But as Free Enterprise: The Art of Citizen Space Exploration , a new show at University of California–Riverside portends, space travel has proved incredibly fertile ground for artists since the 1960s. And with the advent of civilian space travel, as curator Tyler Stallings emphasizes, we’re only going to see more of it.

What distinguishes Free Enterprise is that the 25 artists represented in the sweeping, three-gallery show aren’t just making art about space. They’re actually engaging in space travel, participating in the aerospace industry, and collaborating with astronauts. Take Trevor Paglen, for example, who has spent the past six years choosing the 100 images representing humanity, soon to travel into deep space aboard a tiny gold disc. A similar but older project, the Moon Museum, has an equally sublime mission. In 1969, an artist named Forrest Meyers created a ceramic microchip containing art from Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and others. He convinced a NASA engineer working on the Apollo 12 mission to slip the chip into some gold insulation blankets on the Intrepid landing module. No one really knows if the chip made it all the way to the moon’s surface, but there’s no evidence to the contrary. So began the first in a long line of artists who have–either by corporation or by force–edged their way into the highly controlled aerospace industry.

Though created four decades later than the Moon Museum, a piece called Singular Oscillations by Brooklyn artist Bradley Pitts plugs into the infrastructure of state-run space programs in much the same way. The MIT-trained Pitts (whose Yearlight calendar we’ve noted previously) began working on the project in 2008. His goal was to explore the experience of weightlessness from an emotional perspective, rather than a medical or scientific one. He traveled to Star City, the Russian equivalent of Cape Canaveral, where he undertook a series of flights aboard the IL76-MDK, also known as the “vomit comet,” an aircraft that makes parabolic arcs to create short bursts of weightlessness. Pitts’s journeys–during which he floats naked, with his eyes closed and ears plugged–were recorded and cut into a video, accompanied by artifacts from the experience. Executive Producer Cheryl Kaplan explains that the project “reveals space as viable and cultural, a natural extension of our world that needn’t be taxonified or taxidermied.”

One artifact of Pitts’ journey–a framed email from a retired astronaut–sums up the curatorial instinct behind Free Enterprise perfectly. While making Singular Oscillations, Pitts contacted the astronaut to ask if he’d ever floated naked while in space (and if so, what had the experience been like). He said he hadn’t. But later, the same astronaut emailed him to “confess” that, yes, he had–and the experience had been “memorable.” So human emotion, culture, and art do exist in space–but they just haven’t been freely communicated. Pitts believes that commercial space travel will change how we think about space, shifting it away from a scientific paradigm and toward what he calls “one of play, which fully embraces the entire spectrum of human experience and understanding.”

Ultimately, that’s what the art in Free Enterprise is all about: using space as a device, a mirror of sorts, to reflect the image of humanity back at us. Sure, this is art about space–but at its core, it’s also art about the human experience, and the struggle to comprehend that terrifying (and exciting) void that lies just a few miles overhead.</s>A British-led mission demonstrating how to salvage potentially dangerous junk orbiting the Earth is set for launch less than a day after a Chinese space station broke up over the Pacific.

The RemoveDEBRIS satellite, to be deployed from the International Space Station (ISS), will carry a net for capturing space litter and a harpoon that can be used to spear and haul in larger objects.

A Space X Falcon 9 rocket is waiting to deliver the box-like craft to the ISS from the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Blast off is currently due to take place at 9.30pm UK time (4.30 pm local) on Monday April 2.

The fiery demise of the Chinese space lab Tiangong-1 was a timely reminder of the growing hazard of space junk.

The defunct 10.4 metre long space craft, weighing 8.5 tonnes, re-entered the atmosphere at around 01.15 BST on Monday.

According to official reports it mostly broke up harmlessly above the South Pacific, but there is uncertainty about its precise fate.

Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in the US, tweeted that it appeared to have come down north-west of Tahiti.

Nasa tracks more than 20,000 pieces of debris larger than a cricket ball orbiting the Earth at speeds of up to 17,500mph. There are an estimated 500,000 pieces the size of a marble or larger.

Although the chances are low, a collision between even a small object and a space craft carrying valuable equipment or a human crew would be disastrous.

In 1996, a French satellite was hit and damaged by debris from a French rocket that exploded a decade earlier.

On February 10 2009, a clapped-out Russian satellite collided with and destroyed the functioning Iridium communications satellite. That collision added more than 2,000 extra pieces of trackable debris to the growing space junk inventory.

RemoveDEBRIS, designed and built by a consortium led by the University of Surrey and funded by the European Commission, is the first practical attempt to try out clean-up technology aimed at tackling the problem.

Professor Guglielmo Aglietti, director of the Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey, said: “It is important to remember that a few significant collisions have already happened.

Therefore, to maintain the safety of current and future space assets, the issue of the control and reduction of the space debris has to be addressed.

“We believe the technologies we will be demonstrating with RemoveDEBRIS could provide feasible answers to the space junk problem – answers that could be used on future space missions in the very near future.”

In the first of a series of capture experiments, a net will be discharged to wrap around and ensnare a target cubesat miniature satellite.

A second experiment will see a harpoon fired at a target plate. Other tests of navigation and a large drag sail designed to slow down the RemoveDEBRIS space craft as it falls out of orbit, ensuring it burns up on re-entry, will also be carried out.

Science minister Sam Gyimah said: “Space debris is a growing concern so it’s great to see a British university and our innovative space sector leading the way in the search for solutions.”</s>A British-led mission demonstrating how to salvage potentially dangerous junk orbiting the Earth is set for launch less than a day after a Chinese space station broke up over the Pacific.

The RemoveDEBRIS satellite, to be deployed from the International Space Station (ISS), will carry a net for capturing space litter and a harpoon that can be used to spear and haul in larger objects.

A Space X Falcon 9 rocket is waiting to deliver the box-like craft to the ISS from the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Blast off is currently due to take place at 9.30pm UK time (4.30 pm local) on Monday April 2.

The fiery demise of the Chinese space lab Tiangong-1 was a timely reminder of the growing hazard of space junk.

The defunct 10.4 metre long space craft, weighing 8.5 tonnes, re-entered the atmosphere at around 01.15 BST on Monday.

According to official reports it mostly broke up harmlessly above the South Pacific, but there is uncertainty about its precise fate.

Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in the US, tweeted that it appeared to have come down north-west of Tahiti.

Nasa tracks more than 20,000 pieces of debris larger than a cricket ball orbiting the Earth at speeds of up to 17,500mph. There are an estimated 500,000 pieces the size of a marble or larger.

Although the chances are low, a collision between even a small object and a space craft carrying valuable equipment or a human crew would be disastrous.

In 1996, a French satellite was hit and damaged by debris from a French rocket that exploded a decade earlier.

On February 10 2009, a clapped-out Russian satellite collided with and destroyed the functioning Iridium communications satellite. That collision added more than 2,000 extra pieces of trackable debris to the growing space junk inventory.

RemoveDEBRIS, designed and built by a consortium led by the University of Surrey and funded by the European Commission, is the first practical attempt to try out clean-up technology aimed at tackling the problem.

Professor Guglielmo Aglietti, director of the Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey, said: “It is important to remember that a few significant collisions have already happened.

Therefore, to maintain the safety of current and future space assets, the issue of the control and reduction of the space debris has to be addressed.

“We believe the technologies we will be demonstrating with RemoveDEBRIS could provide feasible answers to the space junk problem – answers that could be used on future space missions in the very near future.”

In the first of a series of capture experiments, a net will be discharged to wrap around and ensnare a target cubesat miniature satellite.

A second experiment will see a harpoon fired at a target plate. Other tests of navigation and a large drag sail designed to slow down the RemoveDEBRIS space craft as it falls out of orbit, ensuring it burns up on re-entry, will also be carried out.

Science minister Sam Gyimah said: “Space debris is a growing concern so it’s great to see a British university and our innovative space sector leading the way in the search for solutions.”</s>A British-led mission to solve the dangers of space junk orbiting the Earth has been successfully launched.

The RemoveDEBRIS satellite is set to be deployed from the International Space Station and will carry a net for capturing space rubbish and a harpoon that can haul in larger objects.

It took off on board a Space X Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Monday evening.

The venture coincides with the Chinese space station Tiangong-1 crashing back down to Earth and landing in the South Pacific on Monday morning.

Nasa tracks more than 20,000 pieces of debris larger than a cricket ball orbiting the Earth at speeds of up to 17,500 mph. An estimated 500,000 pieces are the size of marble or larger.

A collision between a space craft and an object even as small as a marble could be disastrous.

Professor Guglielmo Aglietti, director of the Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey, said: "It is important to remember that a few significant collisions have already happened.

"We believe the technologies we will be demonstrating with RemoveDEBRIS could provide feasible answers to the space junk problem - answers that could be used on future space missions in the very near future."</s>SpaceX successfully launched a Dragon spacecraft filled with supplies and science experiments for the International Space Station.

The spacecraft "Space X Dragon", launched Monday from Florida to orbit, is scheduled to join the International Space Station later this week. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, said the space capsule, loaded with 2,600 kg, was launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.

During a prelaunch news conference, Pete Hasbrook, NASA’s associate programme scientist for International Space Station Programme Science Office at the agency’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, praised the work of Commercial Resupply Services companies.

"The International Space Station is a world-class and multi- disciplinary laboratory in space," he said. "Our commercial providers help in bringing our sciences forward and keep it going on space station and bringing benefits back to Earth."</s>Three days after successfully launching 10 communications satellites into orbit from the West Coast, Hawthorne-based SpaceX on Monday launched a cargo mission from the East Coast en route to the International Space Station.

The CRS-14 mission launched from Cape Canaveral at about 1:30 p.m. Pacific time.

SpaceX used a Dragon cargo-carrying spaceship for the mission — the same one it used during an April 2016 cargo flight to the space station. The Falcon 9 rocket that propelled the ship into space also was previously used, launching a space-station supply mission in August 2017.

Although SpaceX has made a habit of recovering its Falcon 9 rockets for reuse in future missions — reducing the cost of space flights by millions of dollars — the company did not attempt to recover the rocket from Monday’s launch.

The launch was the company’s seventh rocket flight this year and its 14th resupply launch to the space station since 2012 under a multibillion-dollar contract with NASA.

Included in the Dragon spaceship’s nearly three tons of cargo are several science experiments, including:
• An Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor, which will study severe thunderstorms and their impact on Earth’s atmosphere and climate.
• An experiment testing the effect of a no-gravity environment on the process of producing high-performance products from metal powders.

The spaceship is scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station on Wednesday. It will remain at the space station for about a month, before it returns to Earth with about 3,900 pounds of cargo, according to SpaceX.

SpaceX on Friday launched 10 Iridium communications satellites into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The satellites are part of what will ultimately be a 75-satellite array for Iridium’s “next-generation” communications system, which is expected to be in place this summer.</s>In the cargo hold is a UK-built satellite that will test different approaches to removing space junk from the Earth’s orbit, as well as an international science package to study powerful lightning from space.

Led by the University of Surrey, built by the world’s leading small satellite manufacturer Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, and with technology on board designed by Airbus, the RemoveDEBRIS mission will experiment with cost effective technologies that could be used to tackle the problem of space junk.

“Space debris is one of the key challenges we face and it’s great to see a British university and some of our innovative space companies leading the way on the search for solutions. It’s also a fantastic example of the unique expertise found in the UK’s growing space sector and the value that it adds to international projects.

“The UK Space Agency continues to work closely with industry to develop new technologies and infrastructure to grow our share of the global space market as part of the Government’s industrial strategy.”

The RemoveDEBRIS satellite will be deployed from the International Space Station and attempt to capture simulated space debris using a net and a harpoon, while also testing advanced cameras and radar systems. Once those experiments are complete, it will unfurl a drag sail to bring itself and the debris out of orbit, where it will burn up as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere.

The experiment is important as there are thousands of pieces of space debris circulating the planet – many travelling faster than a speeding bullet – posing a risk to valuable satellites and even the International Space Station itself.

Professor Guglielmo Aglietti, Director of the Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey, said:

“It is important to remember that a few significant collisions have already happened. Therefore, to maintain the safety of current and future space assets, the issue of the control and reduction of the space debris has to be addressed.

“We believe the technologies we will be demonstrating with RemoveDEBRIS could provide feasible answers to the space junk problem – answers that could be used on future space missions in the very near future.”

Also on board the SpaceX Dragon capsule is a science experiment known as the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM), which will study high-altitude lightning above severe thunder storms. Scientists are interested in these electrical discharges which can produce bright colours – sometimes called red sprites and blue jets – as they can alter the chemistry of the stratosphere and potentially affect the Earth’s climate. ASIM is travelling to the International Space Station in the trunk compartment of the Dragon capsule. Once it arrives, the station’s robotic arm will transfer the payload from the capsule to the external payload facility on the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Columbus module.

Dr Martin Fullekrug, the lead UK scientist on the project based at the University of Bath, said:

“I have been researching and investigating space and lightning events for over 15 years and the launch of ASIM feels like the pinnacle of my journey into understanding this phenomenon.

“This is the first time such a detailed and technologically-advanced measurement device will be flown into space to observe lightning and will hopefully provide us with new knowledge about how lightning is initiated and how the properties of lightning can affect our daily lives in so many different ways.”

The experiment, part funded by the UK Space Agency through our investment in ESA and built by the Danish company Terma, will be operated by ESA with involvement from scientists in the UK.

Dr Graham Turnock, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency said:

“This experiment will give scientists all over the world the opportunity to study the effects of powerful lightning storms from the unique vantage point of the International Space Station. It’s another exciting moment for international space collaboration and commercial spaceflight, which the UK Space Agency supports through the Government’s Industrial Strategy.”
The Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor launches to the International Space Station to monitor and research thunderstorms.