'Gigantic jet' that shot into space may be the most powerful lightning bolt ever detected

A bolt of lightning illuminates the sky after a heavy rain. Instead of hitting the ground or between clouds, this lightning bolt shoots up from the top of the cloud, hitting the lower edge of space.

These bolts are called giant jets. Scientists have just detected the single most powerful gigantic jet yet, which is the most powerful type of lightning and occurs as few as 1,000 times a year.

Researchers analyzed a gigantic jet that shot out of a cloud over Oklahoma in a study published in August. The bolt moved about 300 coulombs of energy from the top of the cloud to the lower ionosphere using satellite and radar data.

The researchers wrote that the charge transfer is comparable to the largest ever recorded for cloud to ground strokes.

What is the longest lightning bolt recorded?

It took an equally massive stroke of luck to capture such detailed data. A citizen scientist based in Texas filmed the jet with a low-light camera as it shot out of a cloud top and hit the ionosphere.

A network of ground-based radio antennas used to map the locations and times of lightning strikes was very close to the center of the jet. The jet was within range of a number of weather radar systems.

The researchers looked at the size, shape and energy output of the jet in unprecedented detail. The researchers found that the jet's highest-frequency radio-wave emissions came from small structures called streamers, which develop at the very tip of a lightning bolt.

The leader section has the strongest electric current behind it. The leader was hotter than the streamers, with a temperature of more than 8,000 degrees F (4,426 C). The discrepancy is true of all lightning strikes.

Sometimes lightning blasts up instead of down. The team said that it's possible that it involves some sort of obstruction that prevents lightning from escaping through the bottom of a cloud.

There is usually a suppression of cloud-to-ground discharges. In the absence of lightning discharges, the giant jet may relieve the build up of negative charge in the cloud.

In tropical regions, giant jets are reported most often. The jet that broke the record over Oklahoma was not part of a tropical storm. There is more research that needs to be done to understand these strikes.

It was originally published on Live Science