Daniel Winkler

AZ🌵➡️🇺🇸DC. Former ballplayer. Politico. Bartender. Photographer. SF Giants. Texas Longhorns. I like to take pictures 📸

[Andrew Desiderio @AndrewDesiderio]

New in @PunchbowlNews AM — Tony Hanagan, the longtime Senate GOP cloakroom staffer known fondly as “Cloakroom Tony,” is joining @Kalshi as head of congressional affairs after a dozen years as a floor staffer.

https://t.co/VtulanJlhk

[PFT Commenter @PFTCommenter]

This is like the fifth time the A-10 has come back from being retired. The Brett Farve of planes

[Daniel Winkler @danieldwinkler]

@WhaleEverything @NoLimitGains @grok DONE

[Daniel Winkler @danieldwinkler]

@Top100Rick Lake Merced making your list!!!

[Daniel Winkler @danieldwinkler]

@SleeperSFGiants Kenny Lofton?

[Daniel Winkler @danieldwinkler]

@SleeperSFGiants Tsuyoshi Shinjo

[Coach Beans @CoachBeansTTU]

What the fuck is a kilometer.

[Matthew Cappucci @MatthewCappucci]

BREAKING: An incredible "gigantic jet" – an extremely-rare type of upper-atmospheric lightning – was photographed from the International Space Station on Friday morning.

This is the clearest photo we have EVER seen of a gigantic jet from above.

Nichole Rhea Ayers is a major in the U.S. Air Force and a NASA astronaut. She launched to the International Space Station as a pilot of the SpaceX Crew-10 mission on March 14, and will be returning to Earth soon.

On Thursday morning, July3, she captured an unbelievable photo of an ultra-rare GIANT JET. The International Space Station was over Mexico and the southern U.S. at the time.

It looks like the instigating thunderstorm was happening somewhere near Sabinas in Coahuila, Mexico around 1:30 a.m. Central time Thursday.

Gigantic jets are a subset of “blue jets,” which themselves are a type of TLE — or transient luminous event, often referred to as “upper-atmospheric lightning.” There are different types of TLEs, including red “sprites,” green “elves” and blue jets.

Blue jets are the rarest. Elves and sprites occur high above thunderstorms, but jets bridge a key gap between a thunderstorm and the stratosphere high above. Sometimes they even reach up to the base of the mesosphere — the height at which meteors burn up!

They begin as a cloud-to-air discharge that emanates out the top of thunderstorms, but immediately grow to MASSIVE sizes — up to 30 miles tall! They shoot upwards at speeds of 6 to 90 miles PER SECOND, but only last two or three tenths of a second. They are bright blue (almost like a neon sign, since they are plasma after all). The blue color is believed to stem from “excited” nitrogen.
It’s believed that blue jets start as an ordinary lightning strike in the top of thunderclouds, where abundant positive charge is present. Sometimes there’s a negative charge in the clear air above. Instead of the negative charge flowing down to balance out the positive, sometimes the positive shoots upwards into the clear negative skies above. The result? A positive discharge that propagates upwards.

Gigantic jets are even more spectacular. Emerging research suggests they begin as a discharge between negative charge in the mid-levels of the cloud and the positive tops of clouds. That leads to a *negative* “leader” of electricity that shoots upwards and escapes the cloud before it can actually discharge and “balance out” charge within the cloud.

You can tell this one was a “gigantic jet” because of the reddish tops that resembles the stem of a carrot. That’s a sign the gigantic jet reached even higher altitudes — perhaps 50 to 60 miles above the ground.

Atmospheric electrodynamicists (the fancy term for folks who study lightning) are learning about all sorts of never before-discovered lightning discharges. Most of what we know comes from photos like this! In recent years, scientists have coined new terms for curious, fleeting discharges — “trolls”, “pixies”, “ghosts” and “gnomes”.

The existence of upper-atmospheric wasn’t known until July 6, 1989, when a researcher named R.C. Franz left a camera running overnight to capture the night sky. For decades, pilots had reported seeing strange red and blue flashes above thunderstorms, but it wasn’t until Franz obtained photographic evidence that scientists were able to delve deeper into the mystery.

Nowadays, most of what we know comes from photographers who happen to get lucky — especially since the flashes usually last only a couple milliseconds. Ayers’ photo is truly a one-of-a-kind capture that will hopefully shed more light on how TLEs behave.

[Arlington National Cemetery @ArlingtonNatl]

On June 2, 2025, Sergeant of the Guard Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Jay took his final walk as a Tomb Guard at Arlington National Cemetery. In a powerful farewell, he laid roses at each crypt of the Unknown Soldiers, then walked off the plaza hand in hand with his 8-year-old son, Finn.

[Daniel Winkler @danieldwinkler]

@brady_h Difference is waking up and running in the cold and dark gives you the real superiority feeling while the rest of the world stays in bed.

[Andrew McCarthy @AJamesMcCarthy]

On Sunday I traveled to the middle of the desert to capture this: The ISS against our sun. What I didn't expect: the sun producing a magnificent flare at the same time

A once-in-a-lifetime shot I'm thrilled to share with you. See the uncropped shot or get the print in the reply

[Military Support @MilitaryCooI]

Gave me goosebumps.

Makes me proud to see this 🫡

[Military Support @MilitaryCooI]

Honoring the brave souls who gave everything for our freedom. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten. 🇺🇸

[Danny Deraney @DannyDeraney]

Every year, I share this video of French caretakers who take sand from Omaha Beach in Normandy, and scrub them into the letters to give them the gold coloring.

They do this for all 9,386 US soldiers who died.

France also gave us this land as American soil. #MemorialDayWeekend

[Bojan Tunguz @tunguz]

Every day for the next ten days is going tho be the same backwards:

5/20/25
5/21/25
5/22/25
5/23/25
5/24/25
5/25/25
5/26/25
5/27/25
5/28/25
5/29/25

[Jordan @ItzFrenchy]

My sister walked into a @starbucks yesterday, wearing a Star of David necklace.

She ordered a drink, and nobody asked her name.

When her cup came out, it said, “Jew.”

This is blatant antisemitism.

And Starbucks needs to answer for it. 👇

[Daniel Winkler @danieldwinkler]

@shegone03 @MLB About time somebody started talking about this 🗑️ throughout all levels of baseball. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE

[Daniel Winkler @danieldwinkler]

@kempton_timothy Boys gotta get them HR down

[Military Support @MilitaryCooI]

The Abraham Lincoln cutting through fog returning to port.

[NFL Memes @NFLMemes]

If Patrick Mahomes had Allstate instead of State Farm, maybe he'd be protected from mayhem like this