Blue jets are lightning-like, atmospheric electric discharges of several hundred millisecond duration that fan into cones as they propagate from the top of thunderclouds into the stratosphere¹. They are thought to initiate in an electric breakdown between the positively charged upper region of a cloud and a layer of negative charge at the cloud boundary and in the air above. The breakdown forms a leader that transitions into streamers² when propagating upwards³. However, the properties of the leader, and the altitude to which it extends above the clouds, are not well characterized⁴. Blue millisecond flashes in cloud tops^5,6 have previously been associated with narrow bipolar events^7,8, which are 10- to 30-microsecond pulses in wideband electric field records, accompanied by bursts of intense radiation at 3 to 300 megahertz from discharges with short (inferred) channel lengths (less than one kilometre)^9,10,11. Here we report spectral measurements from the International Space Station, which offers an unimpeded view of thunderclouds, with 10-microsecond temporal resolution. We observe five intense, approximately 10-microsecond blue flashes from a thunderstorm cell. One flash initiates a pulsating blue jet to the stratopause (the interface between the stratosphere and the ionosphere). The observed flashes were accompanied by ‘elves’¹² in the ionosphere. Emissions from lightning leaders in the red spectral band are faint and localized, suggesting that the flashes and the jet are streamer ionization waves, and that the leader elements at their origin are short and localized. We propose that the microsecond flashes are the optical equivalent of negative narrow bipolar events observed in radio waves. These are known to initiate lightning within the cloud and to the ground, and blue lightning into the stratosphere, as reported here.

蓝色喷流是数百毫秒持续时间的类似闪电的大气放电，当它们从雷云顶部传播到平流层¹时，它们会扇形成锥形。它们被认为是在云的带正电荷的上部区域与云边界和上方空气中的一层负电荷之间发生电击穿。击穿形成一个领导者，在向上传播³时转变为流光²。然而，领导者的属性，以及它在云层上方延伸的高度，并没有很好地描述⁴。云顶的蓝色毫秒闪烁^5,6以前与狭窄的双极事件^7,8有关，在宽带电场记录中是 10 到 30 微秒的脉冲，伴随着来自放电的 3 到 300 兆赫的强辐射爆发，具有短（推断）通道长度（小于一公里）^9,10,11。在这里，我们报告了来自国际空间站的光谱测量结果，它提供了雷云的畅通无阻视图，时间分辨率为 10 微秒。我们观察到来自雷暴单元的五次强烈的、大约 10 微秒的蓝色闪光。一道闪光向平流层顶（平流层和电离层之间的界面）启动了一个脉动的蓝色射流。观察到的闪光伴随着“精灵” ¹²在电离层。红色光谱带中闪电先导的发射微弱且局部化，表明闪光和射流是流光电离波，并且其起源的先导元素较短且局部化。我们建议微秒闪光是在无线电波中观察到的负窄双极事件的光学等效物。正如这里所报道的，这些已知会在云层内和地面上引发闪电，并在平流层中引发蓝色闪电。