They are called gigantic jets and they are extremely powerful.
Photograph of a gigantic jet, captured in China on August 13, 2016.
This image might be the best image ever captured of this unusual phenomenon.
Sprites were discovered only in 1989, and since then have been photographed by the thousands.
But gigantic jets were not observed until 2001.
Only a few dozen observation has been made since then.
The most recent sighting was in August, 2016.
A similar but less powerful lightning phenomenon are the blue jets.
However, they are short and penetrate only up to about 40-50 km above the earth.
The whole thing was over in a flash, lasting less than a second.
Fortunately, digital cameras were already recording.
This image might be the best image ever captured of this unusual phenomenon.
Photo credit: Phebe Pan
Possibly the sharpest image of a blue jet available so far.
Photo credit: Thijs Bors
Sprite lightning in Vivaro, Italy.
Photo credit: Marko Korosec
Sources:Physics World/Space Weather/Scientific American/Wikipedia/APOD
