In a rare phenomenon, scientists have recorded the longest lightning bolt ever documented, spanning more than 830 kilometers, from East Texas to the outskirts of Kansas City.
The lightning bolt, known as a "megaflash," occurred in October 2017, but was not officially recognized as a world record until after careful analysis of space data.
This is longer than the previous record set in April 2020, when a lightning bolt reached a range of 767 km.
According to the British newspaper, the Daily Mail, the new distance is roughly equivalent to the distance between Paris and Venice.
A Scientific Achievement Behind the Documentation
The study relied on data from World Meteorological Organization satellites, which have provided comprehensive continental-scale lightning monitoring since 2017.
Dr. Michael Peterson of the Georgia Institute of Technology, the study's lead researcher, said that this technology "expands the boundaries of what we can observe about lightning, especially in rare and extreme cases.
"We are now at a stage where we can detect even the rarest types of lightning on the planet and analyze their broad impacts on the environment and humans," he added.
0 Comments