Overview

• NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers captured on July 3 a transient luminous event (TLE) from the ISS that experts now classify as a gigantic jet.
• Spritacular principal investigator Dr. Burcu Kosar spearheaded the follow-up analysis that redefined the image from an initial sprite to a rare upward lightning discharge.
• Gigantic jets are intense electrical discharges launching from storm tops near 20 km up into the upper atmosphere around 100 km, creating a cloud-to-space charge conduit.
• These upward jets are far rarer than sprites and have typically only been spotted incidentally by airline passengers or ground-based cameras.
• Spritacular continues to invite citizen scientists and amateur photographers to submit TLE images to strengthen the global observational record.