The world's longest lightning flashed in America, the incident that happened in 2017 created a world record; scientists were also surprised

News Topical, Digital Desk : It was a date in October 2017. A strong lightning flashed in the sky of America. The lightning was so intense that it was visible from Texas to Kansas. Now, 8 years later, scientists have calculated and found that this lightning was the longest lightning in the world. It was spread across the sky of North America for 829 kilometers.

This incident also broke the record of the 768 kilometer long megaflash that occurred in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi on 29 April 2020. Till now it was considered the longest lightning in the world. But now the lightning of 2017 has broken this record. The World Meteorological Organization announced this on Thursday.

Satellite calculations

According to Science Alert, the GOES East weather satellite orbits 22,236 miles above the Earth's surface. Researchers used its data to calculate the largest lightning. Such events are not easy to capture with ground-based lightning detection networks. That is why satellites are used in this.

Lightning with a spread of more than 100 kilometers is considered a rare event and is called a megaflash. Extreme caution has to be exercised in tracking a megaflash. 3D mapping is done by combining the data received from the satellite with ground-based data and then calculations are made. Sometimes correct calculations cannot be made when some parts of the lightning are covered by clouds.

Lightning is a wonderful natural phenomenon that occurs when particles collide due to atmospheric disturbance and generate electrical charge. As the charge increases, electricity comes out in the form of a huge explosion and this produces lightning. Scientists have expressed the possibility that even bigger possibilities may exist.

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