A type of lightning that appears as a large, diffuse flash in the upper atmosphere is called a sprite.
Sprites are brief electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorms, usually in the mesosphere at roughly 50–90 kilometers above Earth. They are commonly red or reddish-orange and may look like jellyfish, carrots, columns, or branching tendrils. Unlike ordinary lightning, sprites are cold-plasma phenomena rather than hot channels connecting cloud and ground.
Researchers generally associate sprites with powerful positive cloud-to-ground lightning strikes. The lightning changes the electric field above the storm, allowing an electrical breakdown in the thin upper atmosphere. Nitrogen emissions give sprites their characteristic color. The term “sprite” refers to a mischievous supernatural being and was chosen because the phenomenon was mysterious and fleeting.
Sprites are often confused with blue jets, gigantic jets, and ELVES. Blue and gigantic jets shoot upward from storm clouds, while ELVES form rapidly expanding, disk-like glows in the ionosphere. The first modern scientific photograph of a sprite was captured in 1989.