24 January 2021, 8:58 am EST By
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were witnesses to five intense blue jets of light shooting up from thunderstorm clouds into the stratosphere, with each flash lasting mere 10 milliseconds each.
(Photo : Screengrab from ESA)
Blue Lights and Elves
The astronauts aboard the space station describe seeing four of the blue flashes accompanied by a pulse of ultraviolet (UV) light that appears as a rapidly expanding ring.
Meanwhile, the fifth and final flash created a pulsating blue jet, which is a form of lightning that can reach up to 50 kilometers or 31 miles into the stratosphere and only lasts less than a second.
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A blue jet – a bolt of lightning that shoots upwards from thunderstorm clouds – has been spotted from the International Space Station.
The phenomenon was spotted by the European Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) near the island of Naru in the Pacific Ocean.
Nature, astronomers describe seeing five intense blue flashes, each lasting about 10 milliseconds.
Four of the flashes were accompanied by a small pulse of ultraviolet light, which appear as rapidly expanding ring. They are formed by the interaction of electrons, radio waves and the atmosphere and are known as elves (Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources).
Intense flashes lasted only 10 milliseconds, observers say A blue jet - a bolt of lightning that shoots upwards from thunderstorm clouds - has been spotted from the International Space Station. The phenomenon was spotted by the European.
Upward-shooting blue jet lightning spotted from International Space Station Nicoletta Lanese
Scientists on the International Space Station spotted a bright-blue lightning bolt shooting upward from thunderclouds.
Blue jets can be difficult to spot from the ground, since the electrical discharges erupt from the tops of thunderclouds. But from space, scientists can peer down at this cerulean lightshow from above. On Feb. 26, 2019, instruments aboard the space station captured a blue jet shooting out of a thunderstorm cell near Nauru, a small island in the central Pacific Ocean. The scientists described the event in a new report, published Jan. 20 in the journal Nature.