Red Sprites, Blue Jets and Lightning

Upper-atmospheric lightning or upper-atmospheric discharge are terms sometimes used by researchers to refer to a family of electrical-breakdown phenomena that occur well above the altitudes of normal lightning. The preferred current usage is transient luminous events (TLEs) to refer to the various types of electrical-discharge phenomena in the upper atmosphere, because they lack several characteristics of the more familiar tropospheric lightning. TLEs include red sprites, sprite halos, blue jets, gigantic j