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Blue jets develop at cloud tops at 12 to about 26 miles. They appear blue to the naked eye, last for up to several hundreds of milliseconds, and are cone-shaped. According to Sunanda Basu, program director in NSF's Division of Atmospheric Sciences, which funded the research, the video is the first ground-based evidence of a direct electrical discharge from a thundercloud top to the lower edge of Earth's ionosphere. The electrical contact may represent an important component of the global electrical circuit, says Basu.
The event was recorded using a monochrome low-light video system, but the researchers all agree that the phenomena was seen visually as blue in color. The top of the jet appears to look much more like a red sprite than a blue jet, with hot spots and a fuzzy diffused appearance. Scientists do not yet know if this is a new phenomenon. Thumbnail">
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