This photo shows two amazing light phenomena at the same time – BGR

• The lightning strikes we see here on the surface are just one type of storm phenomenon, and others occur in places we cannot see from the ground.
• Lightning also produces incredible views in space above clouds, extending into the atmosphere in colors we never see from cloud-to-ground lightning.
• A new image captured by NOIRLab researchers gives us incredible insight into two rarely seen lightning characteristics occurring at exactly the same time.

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We all know what happens when a thunderstorm passes through our corner of the forest. We have rain, wind, thunder and, of course, lightning. Seeing a cloud-to-ground lightning strike can be a truly spectacular experience – as long as you’re not in the immediate vicinity – but these energy flashes are only part of the lightning story. The rest takes place above the clouds, and you could say that the rarely seen displays that are hidden from our sight on the ground are actually even more amazing.

In a new image published by NOIRLab, we are entitled not to one, but to two of these phenomena frozen in time. The image was captured near Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano in Hawaii that houses several high-powered telescopes. What we see in the photo is lightning directing its power skyward in the form of features called red sprites and blue jets. You can clearly see how they earned their names.

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The photo almost looks fake, and you’d be forgiven for thinking it was. We never get to see lightning bolts like this, and seeing them from a place on Earth rather than from above, is especially rare. The differences between jets and sprites have everything to do with their location in the atmosphere. Red sprites look like flares with flowing tentacles, while blue jets look like solid beams of plasma thrown into space.

This map from the European Space Agency does a great job of showing the difference between the two phenomena, but since they are both the product of lightning pulling upward, they are still intimately linked.

NOIRLab offers an additional context:

Red sprites and blue jets are distinguished by their colors, as well as the direction in which they hit. As you can see in this image, the red and blue lights shoot out from the top of the cloud bridge and head into space, instead of descending to Earth. It is extremely rare to capture these phenomena on camera and even more so from this unique perspective.

The photo was taken by ground cameras called “Cloud Cams” which are located near the Gemini North Telescope. The telescopes there scan the depths of space, but this photo is a great reminder that some pretty amazing things are happening here at home.

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