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Imaging of Lightning and Nighttime Electrical Phenomena from Space (ILAN-ES) seeks to collect images from space of lightning and Transient Luminous Events (TLE). These electrical phenomena above thunderstorms on Earth include blue jets, gigantic jets, Emissions of Light and Very-Low-Frequency perturbations from Electro-magnetic pulses (ELVES) and red sprites. Combining observations from the International Space Station with a global network of ground-based cameras, researchers plan to calculate the energy of observed TLE, reconstruct their 3D structures, identify parent-lightning and electrical parameters, and track lightning activity and cloud illumination patterns from different ranges and angles.

A night-time experiment will image thunderstorms, lightning, and transient luminous events (TLEs) that occur at high altitudes above thunderstorms, which are a marker of severe weather and extremely powerful lightning,

All kinds of electrical events take place in Earth’s upper atmosphere. This experiment engages students in different places on Earth to take pictures of lightning and natural phenomena, while the same observations are occurring on the ISS.  

Sprites, or red sprites, are discharges that take place in the mesosphere (~50-100km above sea level) and occur above thunderstorm clouds all over the planet. They can look like huge carrots, columns, and jellyfish and are sometimes preceded by sprite-haloes, brief oval-shaped emissions of red light.

ELVES (“Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources” ) are reddish, ultra-fast bursts of electricity and are ring-shaped that can spread to more than 185 miles (300 kilometers) wide.

Collectively sprites, haloes, and ELVES are known as TLEs. They are observed above the center of lightning activity on Earth, and usually accompany very powerful lightning flashes.

Observations of the Earth from space offer unique vantage points to monitor large-scale weather events. The benefit of observing TLEs from space is that this unique view can overcome many limitations of observing these high-altitude events from the ground because it can be often very difficult to have a clear line-of site. Images of weather phenomena from space continue to inform scientists about the Earth’s atmosphere and enable us to better understand changes in climate.

The ILAN-ES (Imaging of Lightning and Nocturnal Emissions from Space) experiment was first conducted in April 2022 as part of the Ax-1 mission, in the framework of Rakia Mission, an Israeli set of experiments selected for flight by the Ramon Foundation. The ILAN-ES objective was to record lightning and TLEs from the ISS, based on preliminary thunderstorm forecasts uploaded to the crew 24-36 hours in advance. During the 12-day mission, a total of 45 TLEs were observed, including red sprites and ELVES.

As part of the science objectives of the mission, the ILAN-ES project was augmented by a wide network of ground-based observations to attempt simultaneous space-ground TLE and lightning observations. TLE detection networks run by citizen scientists conduct optical observations from ground-based cameras operating in central Europe (centered in Hungary and Croatia), the Caribbean (Puerto Rico), and South America. The global coverage offered by the various amateur networks enhances the chance for space-ground detection.

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