Gangtok: On June 18, as Sikkim faced the fury of the monsoon with massive rainfall, landslides, and floods, something unusual was recorded in the skies of the Himalayas by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Despite the chaos on the ground, the Himalayan skies, particularly between China and Bhutan, were emitting phenomena known as blue jets or sprites.
NASA’s ‘Picture of the Day‘ featured a dazzling display of gigantic jets soaring over the Himalayan mountains. Unlike ordinary lightning, these jets are the most powerful lightning on the planet, shooting upwards instead of downwards.
Gigantic jets are sky-high lightning, blasting upwards from thunderstorms to an astonishing height of over 80 km, reaching the ionosphere where our atmosphere meets outer space. Packing more than 50 times the power of typical lightning strikes, these upside-down bolts are rare, with only about 1,000 sightings per year.
In an electrifying composite snapshot, four colossal jets were captured mid-leap, surging skyward within minutes of each other over China and Bhutan. The image offers a rare glimpse of a phenomenon that has only been known for two decades.
Blue jets occur when a positively charged upper part of a cloud interacts with a negatively charged layer immediately above it, briefly equalizing the charges and resulting in a bright blue discharge of static electricity.
Interestingly, the first recorded video of blue lightning was also captured in India. On September 8, 2015, from the International Space Station, astronaut Andreas Mogensen shot a color video over the Bay of Bengal, capturing 245 brief blue discharges in the top layer of a cloud. One of these discharges rose above the cloud into the stratosphere.
Similar sightings of gigantic jets have been observed over the Indo-Gangetic plains. Four gigantic jets were recorded during 2013 and 2014 over the Indian mainland. Two were observed on August 2, 2013, about 430 km southwest of Allahabad. The other two were captured on September 7, 2014, about 350 km south of Allahabad.
These jets were observed during thunderstorms with cloud altitudes reaching 17 km and had a short lifespan of 40–80 milliseconds, with one displaying a peculiar horizontal tilt.
To study these phenomena, the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG) deployed a camera system for observing Sprites, Blue Jets, and GJs above thunderstorms in 2012. Located outside Allahabad at 25.4°N, 81.9°E, the cameras cover thunderstorm activity in the middle of the Indo-Gangetic plain.
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Research on gigantic jets, also known as reverse lightning to the sky, is still limited. Their occurrence in the Himalayas, particularly above areas of the Bay of Bengal, raises curiosity about other potential sightings that may have gone unnoticed.
The fact that they occur during the monsoon season is also noteworthy. The monsoon rainfall in Sikkim and parts of the Himalayas closer to the Bay of Bengal, coupled with weather anomalies in the region, may be related to these sightings of gigantic reverse lightning or gigantic jets.
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