Using special equipment installed at the International Space Station (ISS), the team of scientists achieved the rare feat of a ‘blue jet’ created in a specific type of lightning storm cloud and entering space. The observation is described in a published article Natural, Last Wednesday (20).
As the authors of the study explain, blue rays are “lightning regions similar to a few hundred milliseconds propagating in cones as they spread from the top of storm clouds to the stratosphere.”
According to the scientists, they found that at least five blue rays shot from above the clouds, each lasting between 10 and 20 milliseconds and could reach heights of up to 50 km in the stratosphere. The animation below, created by the European Space Agency (ESA), shows how this phenomenon occurs. See:
These blue jets were spotted in February 2019 during a storm over the island of Nuru in the Pacific Ocean. It is formed by an ‘electrical breakdown’ at the intersection of two clouds with different charges, while blue is the effect of stratospheric nitrogen.
Invisible from the surface of the earth
Because of the distance and the storm clouds that cover it, blue rays cannot be seen from the earth’s surface. In this particular case, it was recorded with the equipment of the European Space Atmospheric Reaction Surveillance (ASIM) at the space station.
According to astronomers, the study of this type of phenomenon, also known as light emission and very low frequency disturbances by sources of electromagnetic pulse (Elves), helps to understand how it propagates. Radio waves, interference with communication, refer to how lightning concentration affects Greenhouse effect in the atmosphere.
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