Using cameras and X-ray detectors aboard the International Space Station (ISS), scientists have discovered the origin of so-called “blue jets” of lightning in our atmosphere for the first time. The scientists say the blue jets—appearing 80,000 feet above sea level—are born from “blue bangs” inside of thunderclouds. As for the origin of the blue bangs? That’s still a bit of a mystery.
European Space Agency (ESA) scientists actually detected five of these “blue bangs,” and a subsequent blue jet—both animated in the video above—in 2018. Although it’s only now that they’re describing their findings, in a paper recently published in the journal, Nature.
The scientists say the blue jets are 30-mile-long bolts of lightning that shoot out from the tops of a thunderstorms. And that this one came after a flurry of five 10-micro-second-long flashes of blue light. The instruments aboard the ISS picked up on the flashes coming from a thunderstorm above the Pacific Ocean.
Science News notes Torsten Neubert, an atmospheric physicist and lead other of the paper, used the term “blue bang” to describe the flashes of light that occurred prior to the blue jet. Neubert speculates that a special type of short-range electric discharge inside the thunderstorm causes the blue bangs. With turbulence in the thunderstorm providing opportunities for oppositely charged regions to come within half a mile of each other; and discharge a powerful burst of current.
And while Neubert and his colleagues aren’t certain of what causes the blue bangs, knowing what precedes blue jets still helps us to complete the picture of the atmosphere surrounding Earth.
Incidentally, that picture is also full of elves and red sprites. Those weather phenomena—which consist, respectively, of reddish “tentacles” of light (top, real image), and expanding rings that glow from the collision of electrons and nitrogen (immediately above, animated)—are also appearing above our heads all the time. Which makes the airy world surrounding Earth seem shockingly fantastical.
Kwa kutumia kamera na vifaa vya kupima miale ya X kwenye kituo cha anga cha kimataifa, wanasayansi wamegundua chanzo cha umeme unaoitwa Blue Jets katika anga la dunia. Wanasayansi wanasema jets za bluu - zinazoonekana mita 80,000 juu ya usawa wa bahari - huzaliwa kutoka kwa "bangs za bluu" ndani ya mawingu ya ngurumo. Kuhusu chanzo cha manyoya hayo ya bluu? Hiyo bado ni kidogo ya fumbo. Wanasayansi wa Shirika la Anga la Ulaya (ESA) waligundua "mlipuko wa bluu" na ndege ya bluu iliyofuata, zote mbili zilizoonyeshwa kwenye video hapo juu, mnamo 2018. Ingawa ni sasa tu kwamba wao ni kuelezea matokeo yao, katika karatasi hivi karibuni kuchapishwa katika jarida, Nature. Kwa mujibu wa wanasayansi, mlipuko wa bluu ni umeme unaopiga kwa urefu wa kilomita 30 kutoka kwenye vimbunga vya umeme. Hii ni baada ya mlipuko wa dakika tano za muda wa sekunde 10 za mwangaza wa bluu. Vifaa vya ISS vimeona mwangaza wa umeme kutoka kwa dhoruba ya radi juu ya bahari ya Pasifiki. "Torsten Neubert, mwanasayansi wa hali ya hewa na mwandishi wa jarida hilo, alitumia neno ""blue bang"" kuelezea mwangaza wa mwanga uliotokea kabla ya mlipuko wa bluu." Neubert adhani kwamba aina ya pekee ya umeme wa masafa mafupi ndani ya dhoruba hiyo husababisha mlipuko wa bluu. turbulence katika thunderstorm kutoa fursa kwa ajili ya maeneo kinyume cha malipo kuja ndani ya nusu maili ya kila mmoja na kutolewa mlipuko nguvu ya sasa. Na wakati Neubert na wenzake hawajui ni nini kinachosababisha bluu bangs, kujua nini hufuata jets bluu bado inatusaidia kukamilisha picha ya anga inayozunguka Dunia. Kwa bahati mbaya, picha hiyo pia imejaa elves na sprites nyekundu. Hali hizo za hali ya hewa - ambazo zinajumuisha, kwa mtiririko huo, "tentacles" nyekundu za mwanga (juu, picha halisi), na pete zinazopanuka ambazo zinaangaza kutoka kwa mgongano wa elektroni na nitrojeni (mara moja juu, animated) - pia zinaonekana juu ya vichwa vyetu wakati wote. Jambo hilo hufanya ulimwengu wenye hewa unaozunguka Dunia uonekane kuwa wa ajabu sana.