Gigantic Jets Over Oklahoma Newly discovered type of lightni

Have you ever seen a gigantic jet? They are extremely rare but tremendously powerful. Gigantic jets are a newly discovered type of lightning discharge between some thunderstorms and the Earth's ionosphere high above them. Pictured above is one such jet caught by accident by a meteor camera in Oklahoma, USA. The gigantic jet, at the lower left, traversed perhaps 70 kilometers in just under one second. Gigantic jets are much different from regular cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning. The bottoms of gigantic jets appear similar in appearance to another type cloud-to-ionosphere strike called blue jets, while the tops appear similar to upper-atmosphere red sprites. Although the mechanism and trigger that causes gigantic jets is a topic of research, it is clear that the jets reduce charge imbalance between different parts of Earth's atmosphere. A good way to look for gigantic jets is to watch a powerful but distant thunderstorm from a clear location.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070829.html

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Gigantic
• Jets
• Oklahoma
• NASA
• Astronomy
• lightning
• new
• discover

[jackass5566]

Well done!!

[eqvimana]

No ... ... I have not seen a gigantic jet before. lol Thanks for posting it, very cool stuff.

[DarkStar1O9]

Thanks for posting, I may be showing this video in a presentation this week :)

[LTchimp]

I saw a ball of lightning once.... I was like WTF!! It was huge... It was a sphere looking thing that lasted for 2-3 sec..

[StormChaserNick]

this is awesome! may I ask what camera you used?

[sweetsongman1]

@dharper26 im not sure. but htey are ENORMOUS. they can get up to over 30 miles in length. and sometimes half that in width. they happpen over only the largest thunderstorms. such as those in tornado alley

[MooMoo445]

you've made me proud of Oklahoma...for a day

[dharper26]

I have never heard of these before. What causes them?

[lemonvolt]

This reminds me of the discharge of a type of Tesla Coil. I have never heard of these till now, thank you for the info

[Eastview605]

Yes, the video in question is posted on YouTube. Look for the clip titled "Red Sprites & Blue Jets - the video"