New information about an elusive atmospheric phenomenon known as gigantic jets has been uncovered by a detailed 3D study of a massive electrical discharge that rose 50 miles into space above an Oklahoma thunderstorm. As the most powerful gigantic jet studied so far, the Oklahoma discharge carried 10
, a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, open-access scientific journal.
“The VHF and optical signals definitively confirmed what researchers had suspected but not yet proven: that the VHF radio from lightning is emitted by small structures called streamers that are at the very tip of the developing lightning, while the strongest electric current flows significantly behind this tip in an electrically conducting channel called a leader,” Cummer said.
GTRI researcher Levi Boggs is shown with a schematic showing the structure of a gigantic jet. Credit: Georgia Tech Research Institute “The detailed data showed that those cold streamers start their propagation right above the cloud top,” Boggs explained. “They propagate all the way to the lower ionosphere to an altitude of 50-60 miles, making a direct electrical connection between the cloud top and the lower ionosphere, which is the lower edge of space.”
Why do the gigantic jets shoot charge into space? Researchers speculate that something may be blocking the flow of charge downward – or toward other clouds. Records of the Oklahoma event show little lightning activity from the storm before it fired the record gigantic jet.