Scientists have taken a look at what it is that causes a strange electrical phenomenon called blue ray lightning. Instruments on the International Space Station did what was impossible for scientists on land. According to the Science News breakdown, blue jets – which shoot up from lightning clouds into the stratosphere, rather than to the ground – have been observed by scientists and pilots for years, but without having a top view of the lightning’s cause or source was difficult. Since most pilots will tell you that flying through an active thundercloud is not ideal unless absolutely necessary, that limits the possibilities of observation.
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 jets means that the electric bolt mainly burns nitrogen, which burns blue at that temperature.
According to Science News, blue jets can reach a height of about 50 kilometers in less than a second.
Scientists have finally got a clear picture of the spark that creates an exotic type of lightning, the blue ray.
The space station saw a blue jet emerge from an extremely brief, bright burst of electricity that occurred near the top of a storm cloud last week. Scientists reported the find on January 20.
While blue jets and other atmospheric conditions are unlikely to cause serious injury to humans or animals, scientists follow and study them not only for academic understanding of the natural world, but also for more practical reasons; such events can affect the way radio waves travel, satellites and other communication technologies.
Scientists are trying to figure out what could be special about the sparks the blue rays generate. The explosion reported in January – and recorded in February 2019 – was a 10 microsecond flash of bright blue light that occurred near the top of the cloud, about 10 miles above sea level.
Torsten Neubert, an atmospheric physicist at Denmark’s Technical University in Kongens Lyngby, quoted in the Science News article, suspects the spark may have been a unique type of electrical discharge in the cloud at close range. That would explain the brief, intense explosion, because while traditional lightning is caused by discharges between oppositely charged objects many miles apart, these momentary sparks can bring the oppositely charged areas within about a kilometer, creating powerful bursts of power that would burn up quickly. Evidence of such eruptions is nothing new, but this could provide new insight into the phenomenon.