NASA Captures “Giant Jet” in the Sky

NASA Astronaut Nichole Ayers managed to capture an unusual image from the International Space Station (EEI): a phenomenon known as “Giant jet”registered on July 5 and classified by the agency as an unusual form of TLE (transient light event). As explained by the space agency in an official statement, this type of electric shock represents one of the most powerful manifestations of atmospheric electrical activityextending from the top of a storm to the upper atmosphere.

These downloads are not easy to observe, since They are presented sporadically and are usually seen by chancemany times from aircraft or by land on land that capture other forms of electrical activity by accident. The record made from space offers an unprecedented perspective of this phenomenon, rarely documented so clearly.

Giant jets occur when turbulent conditions are presented in the tops of the stormswhich allows the rays to escape vertically from the cloud system and spread to the highest layers of the atmosphere. In this process An electrical connection between the top of the clouds is formed (located approximately 20 kilometers from altitude) and the upper atmospherelocated around 100 kilometers.

Said vertical discharge deposits a considerable amount of electric charge, becoming a kind of electricity column that crosses several layers of the Earth’s atmosphere. His study contributes to the understanding of How electricity behaves in areas where the atmosphere is thinner and physical conditions change dramatically compared to the regions closest to the surface.

Initially, the image captured by Ayers was identified as a sprite, Another more commonly observed tle form. Los spritesalso known as “elves”, They are brief luminous flashes of reddish colors that appear at high heightin the mesosphere, around the 80 kilometers on the earth.

Unlike gigantic jets, los sprites They do not arise directly from the stormbut are generated independently to a greater altitude, as a result of extremely powerful rays that occur below. Its form can vary: They adopt structures similar to jellyfish, columns or carrotsand can cover areas of tens of kilometers in diameter.

Los sprites They may appear alongside other high -atmosphere electrical phenomena, also known as tle. Among them The halos and the elve are foundacronyms of light emissions and very low frequency disturbances due to electromagnetic pulses sources. These events are part of a broader set of electrical manifestations that, although they are beyond the reach of the common human vision, They represent a complex and active dynamic in the high layers of the Earth’s atmosphere.

According to NASA, direct observation from the space of a gigantic jet allows Advance the understanding of these electrical structures that link meteorological phenomena with processes that occur on the border with space.

By María Camila Salas Valencia