On May 14, 2018, an amateur scientist captured a super lightning over Oklahoma, it is not the first time that one of these colossal rays that extend into space has been photographed, but this time the event happened in a place with a mapping system nearby VHF radios, within range of two next-generation weather radar locations and also in an area accessible to instruments the geostationary operational environmental network satellites of the noaa, national office of the united states oceanic and atmospheric administration .
You ran with luck, you had the photos and you could also measure and analyze the phenomenon captured, although it was not easy to do the research, it took time to analyze the data; On August 3rd, a study was finally published in the magazine Avances de la Ciencia in which it clarifies what happened and also a study that supposes, for the first time, mapping one of the strangest, but also most powerful, phenomena of nature. .
Researchers from various universities and scientific institutions participated in the study, including the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Spain, the data collected showed that the discharge began its propagation just above the top of the storm cloud, reaching the lightning to the ionosphere lower than an altitude between 80 to 96 kilometers, which is practically the limit with space, the karman line where space officially begins is located at about 100 kilometers high.
The gigantic jet moved approximately 300 colombias of electrical charge towards the ionosphere, so that we have a reference a typical storm lightning transports less than 5 colombias between the cloud and the ground, the discharge studied included relatively cold plasma streamers at 204 degrees Celsius, as well as very hot lines or structures called "leaders" at more than 4 thousand 426 degrees Celsius, enough to melt any metal.
Little is known about these phenomena, they are unpredictable and occur beyond the sight of most people because they happen above the cloud cover, giant jets have been observed and studied during the last two decades, but because there is no a specific observation system to look for them data collections have been rare.
Estimates of the frequency of giant jets ranging from 1,000 per year to 50,000 per year have been reported more frequently in tropical regions, although they also occur outside those regions, as shown by the Oklahoma giant jet, which was twice as frequent. powerful than the next strongest detected.
The researchers speculate that something may be blocking the flow of charge down or into other clouds as normal lightning occurs. Records of the Oklahoma event show little thunderstorm activity before the gigantic lightning bolt shot into space. so for some reason there is a suppression of discharges from the clouds to the ground there is a build up of negative charge and then the conditions at the top of the storm weaken the upper charge layer which is usually positive and in the absence of discharges of normal rays we see the gigantic jet that can in this case relieve the accumulation of excess negative charge in the cloud.
This is what the researchers explain, but very little is known about these extraordinary phenomena, the observations that occur practically by chance are rare, either by pilots or passengers of planes who see them or by observers on the ground who operate with cameras of night exploration, beyond your curiosity, the giant jets of energy could have an impact on the operation of satellites in low Earth orbit the jets could also affect technologies such as radar and other communications systems.
As we can see, there are still mysteries up there. Studying what these powerful jets of energy that escape into space are will be one of the most exciting tasks that scientists investigating the Earth's atmosphere will have to carry out in the coming years.
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