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APOD: 2024 August 13 Á Giant Jet from the International Space Station
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Credit & Copyright: NASA,
Expedition 71 Crew,
JSC,
ESRS,
Matthew Dominick;
Processing: Simeon Schmauö
Explanation:
What's that on the horizon?
When circling the Earth on the
International Space Station early
last month,
astronaut
Matthew Dominick
saw an unusual type of lightning just beyond the Earth's edge: a gigantic jet.
The powerful jet appears on the left of the
featured image in red and blue.
Giant jet lightning
has only been known about for the past 23 years.
The atmospheric jets are associated with
thunderstorms and extend upwards towards
Earth's ionosphere.
The lower part of
the frame shows the
Earth at night,
with Earth's thin atmosphere tinted green from airglow.
City lights are visible,
sometimes resolved, but usually
creating diffuse white glows in intervening clouds.
The top of
the frame reveals distant stars in the dark night sky.
The nature of
gigantic jets and their possible association with other types of
Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) such as
blue jets and
red sprites remains an
active
topic of research.
Growing Gallery:
Perseid Meteor Shower 2024 and Aurorae
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: lightning
Publications with words: lightning
See also:
- APOD: 2024 June 18 Á Gigantic Jets over Himalayan Mountains
- APOD: 2023 October 2 Á Sprite Lightning in High Definition
- APOD: 2023 September 18 Á The Red Sprite and the Tree
- APOD: 2023 June 25 Á Lightning on Jupiter
- APOD: 2023 April 17 Á ELVES Lightning over Italy
- Star Trails and Lightning over the Pyrenees
- Red Sprite Lightning over the Czech Republic