About 44 times per second a lighting stroke hits out planet. As one of the most awe-inspiring phenomena in nature, we are all deeply familiar with the immediate consequences of lightning: thunder, the flash of light and possibly the destruction that it leaves in its wake. However, lightning is also associated with other consequences that you may miss in the blink of an eye: far above lightning, close to the boundary between our atmosphere and space, lightning produces strange luminous events with playful names such as sprites and elves. Discovered almost 40 years ago but predicted long before, these Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) teach us about the fundamental physics of electric discharges and about Earth’s upper atmosphere. In this webinar we will review how our understanding of TLEs has evolved since they were observed and what challenges they still offer for future research.
Alejandro Luque graduated from the University of Sevilla, his native town. He then obtained a PhD in theoretical Plasma Physics from the University of Bayreuth (Germany). He did a postdoc at the Ruhr-University in Bochum (Germany) and then at the Center for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where he became acquainted with the physics of electrical discharges. In 2010 he moved back to Spain and to the Institute for Astrophysics of Andalucía (IAA), part of the Spanish High Council for Research (CSIC). There he currently researches different aspects of atmospheric electricity in Earth and other planets of our Solar System.
