High-altitude fireworks

Natural History, Sept, 2002 by Stephan Reebs

For the first time, an electric discharge has been seen stretching all the way from the tops of thunderclouds (approximately ten miles above Earth) to the bottom of the ionosphere (about forty-four miles up). The phenomenon was videotaped by a team of researchers working at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Scientists already knew that electric flashes can illuminate the sky at these two distinct altitudes (such flashes are called blue jets and sprites, respectively), but a complete electric contact between the two regions had never before been witnessed. The researchers, led by Victor P. Pasko, of Penn State University, and Mark A. Stanley, of New Mexico Tech, submit that such high-energy zappings may significantly affect the distribution and movement of electric charges on our planet. ("Electrical Discharge From a Thundercloud Top to the Lower Ionosphere," Nature 416, 2002)

Stephan Reebs is a professor of biology at the Universite de Moncton in New Brunswick, Canada, and the author of Fish Behavior in the Aquarium and in the Wild (Cornell University Press).