Up from the Earth: Gigantic Jet Lightning
What's that rising up from the Earth?
When circling the Earth on the
International Space Station early in
July,
astronaut
Nicole Ayers
saw an unusual type of lightning rising up from the Earth:
a gigantic jet.
The powerful jet appears near the center of the
featured image in red, white, and blue.
Giant jet lightning
has only been known about for the past 25 years.
The atmospheric jets are associated with
thunderstorms and extend upwards towards
Earth's ionosphere.
The lower part of
the frame shows the
Earth at night,
with Earth's thin atmosphere tinted green from airglow.
City lights are visible,
sometimes resolved, but usually
creating diffuse white glows in intervening clouds.
The top of the frame reveals
distant stars in the
dark night sky.
The nature of
gigantic jets
and their possible association with other types of
Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) such as
blue jets and
red sprites remain active topics of research.