Here's some info about the pic and the phenomena.
http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=23&month=08&year=2016SPACE LIGHTNING OVER CHINA: For the past few nights, people around the world have been pointing their cameras at the night sky hoping to catch Perseid meteors. Phebe Pan was one of them, and on Aug. 13th he saw something more amazing any meteoroid. "To observe the shower I went to Shi Keng Kong, the highest mountain peak in the Guangdong province of China," Pan says. "I was using a fisheye lens to capture as much of the sky as possible. Suddenly we saw a flash of blue and purple ejected from the top of a nearby thundercloud."
"It just looked like a tree with branches, and grew up very fast. It lasted just less than one second. So awesome!"
Oscar van der Velde, a member of the Lightning Research Group at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, explains what Pan saw: "This is a very lucky capture of a gigantic jet. It's the first time I've seen one captured using a fisheye lens!"
Think of them as sprites on steroids: Gigantic jets are lightning-like discharges that spring from the tops of thunderstorms, reaching all the way to the ionosphere more than 50 miles overhead. They're enormous and powerful.
"Gigantic jets are much more rare than sprites," says van der Velde. "While sprites were discovered in 1989 and have since been photographed by the thousands, it was not until 2001-2002 that gigantic jets were first recorded from Puerto Rico and Taiwan." Only a few dozen gigantic jets have ever been seen.
Like their cousins the sprites, gigantic jets reach all the way up to the edge of space alongside meteors, noctilucent clouds, and some auroras. This means they are a true space weather phenomenon. Indeed, some researchers believe cosmic rays help trigger these exotic forms of lightning, but the link is controversial.Camera Used: Canon Canon EOS 6D
Exposure Time: 10/1
Aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 1600
Date Taken: 2016:08:14 12:58:44
