CABO ROJO, Puerto Rico – A photographer Wednesday morning caught a rare phenomenon on video during thunderstorms in Puerto Rico.
The phenomenon, known as a gigantic jet, is a Transient Luminous Event (TLE) and looks like upside-down red lightning.
It’s a rare thing to see in person, let alone capture on camera.
In the short video clip, a quick little burst of red flashed through the sky, before quickly disappearing.
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A gigantic jet captured on video in Puerto Rico.
(Frankie Lucena via Storyful / FOX Weather)
NASA said gigantic jets are seen by chance, and are a powerful type of electrical discharge that extends from the top of a thunderstorm into the upper atmosphere.
A slowed-down version of the video showed the gigantic jet, with a purpleish-pink hue at the base, before flaring into bright red branches in the sky.
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A slowed version of video showed the gigantic jet in full from the ground.
(Frankie Lucena via Storyful / FOX Weather)
“Gigantic jets appear when the turbulent conditions at towering thunderstorm tops allow for lightning to escape the thunderstorm, propagating upwards toward space,” NASA reported.
In July, NASA astronaut Nichole “Vapor” Ayers captured a photo of a gigantic jet while aboard the International Space Station.
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NASA astronaut Nichole “Vapor” Ayers captured a stunning photo of a rare red TLE known as a gigantic jet, above a thunderstorm around the Desert Southwest.
(NASA astronaut Nichole “Vapor” Ayers / NASA)
For a brief time, it was debated if what Ayers caught on camera was a gigantic jet or another TLE called a sprite.
Sprites can appear similar to gigantic jets but occur much higher in the atmosphere. NASA determined in August that the photo Ayers caught from the ISS was a gigantic jet.
More related phenomenons include ELVEs, blue jets and ghosts, all of which are known TLEs, and occur well above Earth’s surface in the stratosphere, mesosphere and even the thermosphere.
