From heavenly clouds to mountain tops, passengers on most planes are treated to stunning views of our planet.
But passengers on board a recent flight from Munich to Singapore got more than they bargained for, after a rare ‘ gigantic jet lightning ’ display appeared on the horizon.
Photographer Hung-Hsi Chang captured the beautiful display from the plane, and NASA has now featured the image as Astronomy Picture of the Day.
NASA said: “While flying from Munich to Singapore earlier this month, an industrious passenger took images of a passing lightning storm and caught something unexpected: gigantic jet lightning.
“The jet was captured on a single 3.2-second exposure above Bhadrak, India.”
Gigantic jet lightning is an extremely powerful form of lightning that takes place between clouds and the ionosphere, where the electric potential is hundreds of kilovolts higher than Earth’s surface.
For example, a typical lightning strike usually travel around 10km, gigantic jet lightning has been known to travel for more than 70km!
NASA said: “Although the gigantic jet appears connected to the airplane's wing, it likely started in a more distant thundercloud, and can be seen extending upwards towards Earth's ionosphere.”
Gigantic jets belong to a group of lightning events known as ‘transient luminous events’, along with red sprites and blue jets.
NASA added: “The nature of gigantic jets and their possible association with other types of Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) such as blue jets and red sprites remains an active topic of research.”
