The “giant plane” was captured by an anonymous astronaut on November 19, 2024. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
A newly released image taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS) provides a unique glimpse of an upward-facing “giant jet” of lightning that appears to extend more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) over the United States coastline.
The stunning photo was taken by an anonymous ISS crew member on November 19, 2024, but was not initially released by NASA or any other space organization. However, photographer Frankie Lucena, who specializes in capturing giant lightning bolts, discovered images of the event on the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth website and shared them with Spaceweather.com, which reposted the images on February 26.
“I checked the ISS database for before and after photos and found only four [lightning] images,” Lucena told Spaceweather.com. Those images are available in a time-lapse video on YouTube, but only one shows the associated jet.
The exact location of the jet remains uncertain, as the Earth's surface is obscured by storm clouds in the images. However, given the position of the ISS at the time, the jet likely originated near the coast of New Orleans, as noted by Spaceweather.com.
The exact height of the jet is not known. However, it probably reached about 50 miles above the Earth.
Jets are huge bolts of lightning that shoot upward from thunderstorms when charged cloud layers temporarily invert. They emit mostly blue light due to the high nitrogen content of the upper atmosphere and typically last less than a second.
Most of the giant jets observed reach the ionosphere, a layer of the atmosphere that begins about 50 miles above Earth and contains charged particles captured from the sun. This has given the phenomenon the nickname “Earth’s tallest lightning,” according to Spaceweather.com. However, the exact height of the newly recorded lightning is not known.
The giant jets also have exceptionally high energy. The most powerful recorded instance of this phenomenon, which occurred during a thunderstorm over Oklahoma in May 2018, contained about 60 times more energy than typical lightning, reaching 8,000 degrees Fahrenheit (4,400 degrees Celsius).
These jets often end in whorls of branching red lightning, which can be faintly seen in the new image. These extra discharges look very much like the “sprites” that typically appear
Sourse: www.livescience.com
