Scientists have seen what causes a strange electrical phenomenon called blue lightning. The instruments of the International Space Station did what Earth scientists had been unable to do. According to the Science News breakdown, blue jets, which shoot from lightning clouds into the stratosphere, instead of lowering them to the ground, have been observed by scientists and pilots for years, but without having a top view of the lightning clouds the cause or origin was difficult. Since most pilots will tell you that flying through an active thunder cloud is not ideal unless absolutely necessary, this limits your observation options.
The blue ray gets its name from its color and gets its color from what it burns in the atmosphere. Traditional lightning interacts with a wide variety of gases on its way to the ground, but the upward movement of the blue rays means that the electric bolt burns mostly nitrogen, which burns blue at this temperature.
According to Science News, blue rays can reach altitudes of about 50 kilometers in less than a second.
Scientists have finally had a clear view of the spark that causes a type of exotic lightning called blue ray.
Last week, the Space Station spotted a blue ray coming out of an extremely brief, bright burst of electricity that passed near the top of a cloud of thunder. Scientists reported the finding on January 20th.
Although blue rays and other weather events in the upper atmosphere are unlikely to cause serious harm to people or animals, scientists monitor and study them not only for academic understanding of the natural world, but also for more practical reasons. ; these events can affect the way radio waves travel, impact satellites and other communications technologies.
Scientists are trying to figure out what could be special about the sparks generated by blue jets. The explosion recorded in January (and recorded in February 2019) was a 10 microsecond flash of bright blue light, which took place near the top of the cloud, about 10 kilometers above.
Torsten Neubert, an atmospheric physicist at the Technical University of Denmark in Kongens Lyngby quoted in Science News, suspects the spark may have been a unique type of short-range electric shock inside the cloud. This would explain the brief and intense explosion, as although traditional lightning is caused by discharges between charged objects as opposed to many kilometers away, these short-term sparks can bring charged areas up to about a kilometer away, creating powerful explosions. of current that would burn up fast. Evidence of this type of outbreak is nothing new, but this could provide a new insight into the phenomenon.