A Gigantic Jet With Fireballs

[Friends just call me Ross]

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A GIGANTIC JET WITH FIREBALLS: 

https://spaceweather.com

 

Lightning on Earth is getting weirder and weirder.

 

On the evening of Sept. 20th, Puerto Rican photographer Frankie Lucena pointed his Sony A7s camera at an offshore electrical storm. This is what he saw:

 

"This Gigantic Jet plasma event occurred over a very powerful thunderstorm near the Virgin Islands just ahead of Tropical Storm Peter," says Lucena.  "I can't believe I was able to capture such amazing details."

 

Indeed, this is one of the best-ever photos of a Gigantic Jet. Sometimes called "Earth's tallest lightning," because they reach  the ionosphere more than 50 miles high, the towering forms were discovered near Taiwan and Puerto Rico in 2001-2002.

 

Since then, only dozens of Gigantic Jets have been photographed. They seem to love storms over water and are famous for surprising passengers onboard commercial aircraft.  

 

In 2017 and 2018, lightning researcher Oscar van der Velde of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya set up high speed cameras on the northern coast of Colombia in a dedicated campaign to capture Gigantic Jets.

 

In three months of observing time he managed to capture only 12.

 

That's how elusive they are.

[Ludwika]

That's amazing!

[Dages]

That's a sprite, isnt it?

[Friends just call me Ross]

3 hours ago, Dages said:

That's a sprite, isnt it?

Sprites and Jets are two separate phenomenon:

 

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https://www.albany.edu/faculty/rgk/atm101/sprite.htm

 

Transient Luminous Events:

 

Red sprites are large but weak luminous flashes that appear directly above an active thunderstorm system and are coincident with powerful positive cloud-to-ground lightning strokes. Their spatial structures range from small single or multiple vertically elongated spots, to bright groupings which extend from above the cloud tops to altitudes up to almost 60 miles (about 95 km. Sprites are predominantly red and they usually last no more than a few milliseconds. The brightest region lies in the altitude range 40 to 45 miles (about 65-75 km), above which there is often a faint red glow or wispy structure that extends to about 55 miles (90 km). Below the bright red region, blue tendril-like filamentary structures often extend downward to as low as 20 miles (30 km). Some events are loosely packed and may extend across horizontal distances of 30 miles (50 km) or more. Their shapes can be variously described as resembling jellyfish, carrots, or columns. Because of their low surface brightness, they have only been imaged at night (primarily with highly sensitive cameras). However, if ones eyes are sufficiently dark-adapted, one can actually detect them without any visual aid. The first images of a sprite were accidently obtained in 1989, although anecdotal reports of "rocket-like" and other optical emissions above thunderstorms go back more than a century (see for example an early account by Johann Georg Estor. Early research reports for these events referred to them by a variety of names, including "upward lightning," "upward discharges," "cloud-to-stratosphere discharges," and "cloud-to-ionosphere discharges." Now they are simply referred to as sprites, a whimsical term that evokes a sense of their fleeting nature, while at the same time remaining nonjudgemental about physical processes that have yet to be determined.
More on the "discovery" and confirmation of sprites

 

Blue jets are a second high altitude optical phenomenon, distinct from sprites and first documented in 1994 (although pilots had earlier reported similar sightings). Blue jets are optical ejections from the top of the electrically active core regions of thunderstorms, but not directly associated with cloud-to-ground lightning. Following their emergence from the top of the thundercloud, they typically propagate upward in narrow cones of about 15 degrees, fanning out and disappearing at heights of about 25-30 miles (40-50 km) with a lifetime of a couple of tenths of a second.