Scientists puzzled by gigantic energy 'jets' that shoot up to space
dailystar.co.ukspace rather than towards Earth – ever recorded.The zig-zagging, upward eruptions are a dazzling sight and remain a largely unexplained phenomenon with the jet witnessed springing up from a cloud top in Oklahoma, USA, and darting 50 miles above Earth's surface having delivered the largest charge transfer to space on record.A lightning bolt's charge is measured in coulombs with a typical average strength of less than five.READ MORE:Ferrari recalls 'nearly every car it's made since 2005' due to possible brake failureBut this gigantic jet transferred a flabbergasting 300 coulombs to the ionosphere – the area where Earth's atmosphere meets space.That figure is almost double the previous largest recorded charge for a gigantic jet and matches that documented as the strongest for a cloud-to-ground bolt.It struck on May 14, 2018, and is the subject of a study published last week in the Science Advances journal.The jet was captured from the ground on film by a citizen scientist in Hawley, Texas, with a low-light camera, while other instruments on the ground and in space also provided the shock data.Now scientists led by Levi Boggs, a research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, are trying to decipher what it all means.In addition to its surprisingly high charge, the jet has baffled scientists like Boggs because it emerged from "unusual circumstances" in a "unique thundercloud", according to the study.
It is more common for gigantic jets to occur in tropical environments, where they are located near parts of a storm that are strongly convective, but this one happened in an area of weak convection.To stay up to date with all the latest news, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters here."There was no lightning.
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