Sprite triggered shuttle break-up?

[David Farber <farber () tmail com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Saffo <psaffo () iftf org>
To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
CC: Paul Saffo <psaffo () iftf org>
Subject: Sprite triggered shuttle break-up?
Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2003 09:07:05 -0800

D-
Interesting, as it is the first time sprites have turned up in the 
popular
press, and also bec of the role played by an amateur astronomer.
-p
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Cosmic bolt probed in shuttle disaster
Scientists poring over 'infrasonic' sound waves

Sabin Russell, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, February 7, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle

 URL:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/02/07/MN200326.DTL



       Federal scientists are looking for evidence that a bolt of
electricity in the upper atmosphere might have doomed the space 
shuttle
Columbia as it streaked over California, The Chronicle has learned.

       Investigators are combing records from a network of 
ultra-sensitive
instruments that might have detected a faint thunderclap in the upper
atmosphere at the same time a photograph taken by a San Francisco 
astronomer
appears to show a purplish bolt of lightning striking the shuttle.

       Should the photo turn out to be an authentic image of an 
electrical
event on Columbia, it would not only change the focus of the crash
investigation, but it could open a door on a new realm of science.

       "We're working hard on the data set. We have an obligation," 
said
Alfred Bedard, a scientist at the federal Environmental Technology
Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. He said the lab was providing the data to 
NASA
but that it was too early to draw any conclusions from the sounds of 
the
shuttle re-entry.

       The lab has been listening to the sounds of ghostly 
electromagnetic
phenomena in the upper atmosphere, dubbed sprites, blue jets and elves. 
For
some time, scientists have speculated on whether these events could 
endanger
airliners or returning spacecraft.

       A study conducted 10 years ago for NASA found that there is a
1-in-100 chance that a space shuttle could fly through a sprite, 
although it
concluded that the consequences of such an event were unclear. And in 
1989,
an upper- atmospheric electrical strike "shot down" a high-altitude 
NASA
balloon 129,000 feet over Dallas.

       NASA officials have said they are looking for a "missing link" 
to
explain the shuttle's breakup that killed seven astronauts Saturday, 
and
they are downplaying the theory that foam insulation falling from the
shuttle's extra tank may have contributed to the shuttle's demise.

       The little-known infrasound project at the Environmental 
Technology
Laboratory operates a network of sophisticated electronic ears that can 
pick
up subaudible thuds of waves crashing on either coast of the United 
States
and the hiss of meteors and spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere 
thousands
of miles away.

       Sound waves of this nature are called "infrasonic" and are below 
the
range of human hearing but travel unimpeded for extraordinary 
distances.
Arrays of infrasonic sensors in the high Colorado plains east of 
Boulder
recently have been looking for the crackle of the ghostly 
electromagnetic
events in the Earth's upper atmosphere.

       "We basically detect events at very long ranges," Bedard said. 
But he
stressed that it was too early to draw any conclusions from sounds of 
the
shuttle re-entry. Bedard said the acoustic sensors had previously 
detected
the re-entry of a space shuttle from Northwest Canada to the Kennedy 
Space
Center.

       CELESTIAL THUNDERCLAP

       Originally, it was thought that the electrical charges in the 
thin
atmosphere 50 miles above Earth were too dispersed to create infrasound. 
But
Los Alamos National Laboratories physicist Mark Stanley said that, on 
closer
inspection, "we've seen very strong ionization in sprites" indicating 
that
there were enough air molecules ionized to  cause heating and an
accompanying pulse -- a celestial thunderclap, as it were.

       NASA administrators confirmed Thursday that the photograph, 
taken
from Bernal Heights in San Francisco by an amateur astronomer, is 
being
evaluated by Columbia crash investigators. However, Shuttle Program 
Manager
Ron Dittemore told reporters at a Houston news briefing that right now 
NASA
is trying only to verify "the validity" of the image.

       The astronomer, who has asked that his name not be used, has 
declined
to release the digital image to the media. But earlier in the week, he
permitted Chronicle reporters to view the image and invited one to his 
home
Tuesday evening, when the camera, and a disk of the image, were turned 
over
to former shuttle astronaut Tammy Jernigan for transit to Houston.

       The image was also e-mailed Tuesday evening to Ralph Roe Jr., 
chief
engineer for the shuttle program at Johnson Space Flight Center in 
Houston.

       Dittemore would not say during the news conference whether NASA 
has
ruled in or ruled out one possible explanation for the photo: that the 
image
could have been caused  by jiggling of the camera. It was a Nikon 
M-880
mounted on a tripod. The automatically timed exposure of four to six 
seconds
was triggered by finger.

       "We have to validate whether it is real," Dittemore said. "This
particular one is no different from the others. . . . It has yet to be
determined whether this is important to us or not."

       SEEKING EVIDENCE

       NASA officials have stressed the importance of photographic, 
video or
debris evidence from the earliest moments of the shuttle's distress, 
which
sensors indicate began at about 5:53 a.m. above California. That's 
when
sensors in a wheel well blinked out, in the words of NASA investigators, 
"as
if someone cut a wire."

       That is also roughly the time during which the amateur 
photographer
snapped his image of Columbia as it streaked across the sky north of 
San
Francisco. A precise time may be mapped by matching the photo and the
strange electrical signature to the crisp background field of stars.

       Physicists have long jokingly referred to the lower reaches of 
the
ionosphere -- which fluctuates in height around 40 miles -- as the
"ignorosphere," due to the lack of understanding of this mysterious 
realm of
rarefied air and charged electric particles.

       The family of "transient" electrical effects occupy this part of 
the
sky, including sprites, which leap from the ionosphere to the tops of
thunderheads, and blue jets, which leap from thunderhead anvils to the
ionosphere.

       Streamers of static electricity can travel these realms at speeds 
100
times that of ground lightning, or 20 million miles an hour.

       Ten years ago, Walter Lyons, a consultant with FMA Research Inc. 
in
Fort Collins, Colo., conducted a study of sprite danger for NASA. "We
concluded that there is about 1 chance in 100 that a shuttle could fly
through a sprite. What impact, we didn't know for certain. It didn't 
appear
at this time that the energy would be enough to cause problems."

       But Lyons conceded that the "ignorosphere" is a mysterious place 
that
has yielded startling surprises. "Since then, with research on 
electrical
streamers, the discovery of blue jets, the doubt has gone up," he 
said.

       "There are other things up there that we probably don't know 
about,"
Lyons said. "Every time we look in that part of the atmosphere, we 
find
something totally new."

       LACK OF RESEARCH FUNDING

       But the field is dominated by a small club of electrophysicists 
who
have seen their money for research dry up. Ironically, an experiment 
of
Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, aboard the doomed Columbia, was among the 
last
fully funded work conducted on sprites. Lyons, considered to be one of 
the
leading authorities, said he played a role in the design of the 
experiment.

       To date, sprites have required the presence of a significant
electrical storm on the ground. As the shuttle passed over Northern
California, there were some heavy rain showers in the far north of the
state, but none of the wild weather normally associated with sprites.

       Hearing a description of the purplish, luminous corkscrew in the 
San
Francisco photograph, Lyons said, "This was not a sprite event . . . 
but
maybe it is another electrical phenomenon we don't know about."

       Whether or not an electrical discharge might be involved in the
demise of Columbia, there is precedent for an event like this.

       Scientists have observed interaction between a blue jet and a 
meteor.
And in December 1999, Los Alamos National Laboratories researcher 
David
Suszcynsky and colleagues, including Lyons, published an account of a 
meteor
that apparently triggered a sprite. Their account is published in the
Journal of Geophysical Research.

       "It was a singular observation that had us all scratching our 
heads,"
said Lyons. In the strange world of sprite and elf research, scientists 
have
documented one event in which some sort of high atmospheric event 
"shot
down" a high-altitude balloon over Dallas.

       On June 5, 1989, before the first sprite was ever photographed, 
a
NASA balloon carrying a heavy pack of instruments suffered "an 
uncommanded
payload release" at
       129,000 feet, according to Lyons. It landed in an angry Dallas
resident's front yard.

       Investigators found scorch marks on the debris and considered it 
one
of the first bits of solid evidence that sprites exist. As a result of 
the
accident, NASA no longer flies balloons over thunderstorms.

       Ironically, the balloon was launched from a NASA facility in
Palestine, Texas, one of the towns where debris from the space shuttle
Columbia fell Saturday.

       E-mail Sabin Russell at srussell () sfchronicle com.

       ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

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-- Dave

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