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What are Sprite, Jets and Elves?
THEORY:
Upper atmospheric lightning or a TLE as it is now termed, is a manifestation of the release of ionized gas and particles from thunderstorms. This is contrary to what today's science claims i.e. the movement of electrons similar to that of a lightning plasma discharge.
Blue Jets are the release of highly energized H+ or protons from the dissociation of sulfuric acid in the thunderstorm. Included with these H+ ions is sulfate, H3O+, ozone and ionized oxygen. As these encounter other atoms such as nitrogen, they energize them and the nitrogen atoms give off light which accounts for the color of the Blue jet itself. As this ionized gas cloud spreads out and releases energy, it gives off different light spectra depending on the atoms it encounters. Some of these ions are blocked by the different layers of the atmosphere such as ozone and the color changes and it becomes a Sprite in the thermosphere. When this ionized gas, which is almost entirely made of positive ions, encounters the ionosphere, it spreads out across the lower ionosphere forming Elves. This occurs more predominantly on the night side of the planet because of the lack of positive ions at the outer edge of the magnetosphere during the night as the planet turns away from the solar wind.
If you examine the diagram above, it appears more like an expanding gas cloud than it does a lightning discharge. To find out what science says about Upper Atmospheric Lightning refer to this link.
Below is an excerpt from Wikipedia.org that explains this process as the ions leave the atmosphere.
Thermal escape mechanisms
One classical thermal escape mechanism is Jeans escape. It is the escape of individual molecules from the high tail of the Maxwell distribution, at a level in the atmosphere where the mean free path is comparable to the scale height. Maxwell's distribution prescribes the kinetic energy distribution of the molecules, which depends on the mass and the velocity according to
From this dependence, we see that the more massive a gas molecule is, the lower its average speed at a given temperature, meaning it is less likely to escape. This is why hydrogen escapes from a given atmosphere more easily than carbon dioxide. Also, if the planet has a higher mass, the escape velocity is greater, and fewer particles will escape. This is why the gas giant planets are able to have significant amounts of hydrogen and helium, while they escape on Earth. The distance to the Sun also plays a part; a close planet has a hotter atmosphere, which generally leads to a faster range of velocities, and more chance of escape. This helps Titan, which is small compared to Earth but further from the Sun, keep its atmosphere.
However, while it has not been observed, it is theorized that an atmosphere with a high enough pressure and temperature can undergo a 'blow-off'. In this situation molecules basically just flow off into space. Here it is possible to lose heavier molecules than would not normally be lost.
Extracted from Wikipedia.org
