Giant jets in the sky over Texas

Although officially summer has not started yet, but in the Great plains are already a summer storm. Kevin Palivec, managing multiple cameras for observing the night sky, noted that the season of sprites definitely started. This week, he photographed several of these zips, including a gigantic jet shooting up from a thundercloud in Oklahoma.

The line of storms in Oklahoma was located perfectly, as it helped make the entry of the jets, beating to bring some of the cloud tops to a distance of about 483 km from the camera. Palivec used black-and-white camera Watec 902h should be the Ultimate in weatherproof enclosure, located on the 6-meter tower.

Gigantic jets can be compared with the "sprites on steroids". Those lightning bolts much more powerful and more rare than their red cousins. Palivec watched the sky in Texas for 6 years, but still managed to take pictures only 5 giant jets, 2 of which were studied in the research work. However, according to him, to observe them is always interesting. This recording was made on may 14.

Sprites and jets — is "exotic" forms of lightning taking off from the storm up, not down. Some researchers believe that they are associated with cosmic rays — subatomic particles from outer space strike the upper part of the Earth's atmosphere, producing secondary electrons, which start with the zippers. If that's true, sprites and jets in the coming years will be more, because the intensity of cosmic radiation increases because of the decline of the solar cycle. Although sprites have been observed for at least century, most scientists did not believe they existed until 1989, when they were photographed the camera on Board the spacecraft.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»