Gigantic Jet Lightning over India
Image Credit & Copyright:
Hung-Hsi Chang
Yes, but can your lightning bolt do this?
While flying from
Munich to
Singapore
earlier this month,
an industrious passenger took images of a passing lightning storm and
caught something unexpected:
gigantic jet lightning.
The jet was captured on a single 3.2-second exposure above
Bhadrak,
India.
Although the
gigantic jet
appears connected to the airplane's wing, it likely started in a more distant
thundercloud, and can be seen extending upwards towards
Earth's ionosphere.
The nature of gigantic jets
and their possible association with other types of
Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) such as
blue jets and
red
sprites remains an active topic of research.