Pakyong, 26 June : A peculiar phenomenon has once again baffled scientists globally, as they seek to understand the science behind gigantic upward lightning jets. These rare events have been sighted predominantly around the Himalayas.
According to reports, the same type of upward jet flasher lasting 40-50 milliseconds was observed for the fifth time since 2014 near the Indo-China border close to Bhutan very recently on June 18. Such sightings are extremely rare and remain largely unexplained.
Gigantic jets, a type of lightning discharge that occurs between some thunderstorms and the ionosphere, have only been documented in the 21st century.
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day recently featured an event showing gigantic jets shooting up from a thunderstorm towards the Himalayas. The four long jets, occurring within minutes, demonstrated an unusual type of lightning distinct from regular cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning. These discharges can travel as high as 80 kilometers above the Earth’s surface and pack 50 times the power of a regular lightning strike.
The bottom of a gigantic jet resembles blue jets (cloud-to-above strikes), while the top resembles upper-atmosphere red sprites. According to NASA, these jets help balance the charge between different parts of Earth’s atmosphere.
In August last year, Puerto Rico-based photographer Frankie Lucena captured this rare phenomenon from a storm system that later became Hurricane Franklin. Gigantic jets were also observed over Bhadrak, Odisha, from an airborne plane in 2018.
The nature of gigantic jets and their possible association with other Transient Luminous Events (TLEs), such as blue jets and red sprites, remains an active area of research.
