Rare Form of ‘Red Lightning’ Caught on Camera Over Puerto Rico

Remote cameras precocious captured a uncommon earthy airy amusement successful the entity implicit Puerto Rico. The hauntingly beauteous bursts are called gigantic jets, an uncommon signifier of lightning that originates successful clouds and shoots upwards, precocious into the atmosphere, alternatively than down towards the ground.

Cameras operated by the Caribbean Astronomy Society captured the images successful the aboriginal hours of August 4. While members of the nine were reviewing the footage to analyse meteors, they alternatively saw the agleam bursts, which lasted for a fewer seconds. In a Facebook post, the enactment said they had received reports of radical seeing the jets from respective areas of the island.

“The images we obtained suggest that these discharges seen from the Island indispensable person lasted longer than usual,” the CAS said.

Gigantic jets are a recent discovery, lone being documented for the archetypal clip successful 2002. They are akin to red sprites, successful that some are electrical discharges that emergence from clouds, shooting 56 miles (90 kilometers) precocious into the ionosphere. The jets are powerful, with an strength up to 10 times that of accepted lightning. On immoderate occasions, their unit tin adjacent impact satellites successful debased Earth orbit.

Since their discovery, researchers person found that gigantic jets lone hap erstwhile temperatures debased successful the ambiance are colder than those successful the mid-atmosphere, starring to clouds forming comparatively adjacent to the ground. While the nonstop mechanics that causes gigantic jets is inactive being researched, they hap erstwhile determination is simply a quality successful complaint betwixt 2 layers of the atmosphere. As the energy passes done the mesosphere, it interacts with nitrogen, which is what gives the jets their reddish color.

Although gigantic jets lone originate from clouds that are portion of aggravated thunderstorms, they sprout truthful precocious into the entity that they tin beryllium seen from a agelong region away. That’s wherefore the Puerto Rico video shows the jets against a wide nighttime sky: The thunderstorm was really miles distant from the cameras.

Although rare, gigantic jets person occasionally been caught connected camera. In 2021, a lensman successful Puerto Rico was capable to get a elaborate changeable of a jet’s agleam reddish colors.