An astronomy curator captured a photograph of a rare red atmospheric phenomenon known as a sprite over Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture [1].
The image provides a clear record of a transient luminous event that occurs far above typical lightning strikes. These sightings are rare because they happen in a fraction of a second and require specific weather conditions to be visible from the ground.
Daichi Fujii, an astronomy curator at the Hiratsuka City Museum, took the photograph on July 26, 2026, at 9:47 p.m. JST [1]. While the weather in Hiratsuka was clear at the time, sudden thunderstorms were occurring across various parts of the Kanto region [2].
Fujii said he noticed the distant sky lighting up due to the storms and decided to point his camera toward the horizon. This timing allowed him to capture the sprite as it formed above a distant thundercloud [2].
"Sprites occur simultaneously with intense lightning strikes," Fujii said. "They become a luminous phenomenon that glows red toward space" [2].
Unlike traditional lightning, which strikes downward toward the earth or moves horizontally between clouds, sprites are electrical discharges that shoot upward. They typically appear in the mesosphere, a layer of the atmosphere located well above the clouds where standard lightning occurs.
Fujii said the clear skies in Hiratsuka provided the necessary visibility to see the phenomenon occurring over a separate, distant storm system [2].
“"They become a luminous phenomenon that glows red toward space."”
The capture of a sprite in the Kanto region highlights the intersection of severe local weather and upper-atmosphere physics. Because sprites are nearly impossible to predict and vanish almost instantly, such photographs serve as critical visual data for scientists studying the electrical connection between the troposphere and the ionosphere.
