Red Lightning: 15 Mysterious Phenomena - How Many Have You Seen?

2. Blue Jets: The Sapphire Cousins of Red Lightning

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Although blue jets are not red itself, they are strongly associated with red lightning events and frequently coexist with them. Rising from the summits of thunderclouds, these little, cone-shaped bursts of blue light reach stratosphere heights of up to 50 km. Given only a few tenths of a second, blue jets are even more elusive than red sprites. Excitation of neutral and ionised molecular nitrogen produces blue jets' azure colour. Blue jets are hypothesised to be started by the electrical breakdown between the top positive charge zone and the negative screening layer above the cloud, unlike red sprites which are triggered by positive cloud-to- ground lightning strikes. Blue jets, according to scientists, might be very important in the global electrical circuit since they serve to balance the charge distribution between the ionosphere and the ground. Though they are rather important, blue jets remain one of the least known types of upper atmospheric lightning; many issues regarding their origin and consequences are unresolved.