blue jet

noun

1. a faint discharge of blue light from the top of a thunderstorm cloud that propagates upward: extends approximately from the bottom to the top of the stratosphere and is not detectable from the ground.

blue jet

1. A conical discharge of blue light that starts from the top of active thunderstorm clouds and proceeds upward. Blue jets can last up to several hundred milliseconds and are believed to connect the top of a thundercloud with the ionosphere.

Word History and Origins

Origin of blue jet¹

1990–95

Example Sentences

So scientists looked for a blue jet using the International Space Station.

From Science News For Students

The spark that caused the blue jet may have been a special type of electric event inside the cloud, Neubert says.

From Science News For Students

The paper describes not just the blue jet itself, but also a few of its friends—four smaller flashes at the top of the clouds that did not project out into the second layer of the atmosphere, known as the stratosphere.

From Popular-Science

Now, instruments on the International Space Station have spotted a blue jet emerge from an extremely brief, bright burst of electricity near the top of a thundercloud, researchers report online January 20 in Nature.

From Science News

Have marked the thin, blue jet of smoke from my flashing muzzle hurled.

From Project Gutenberg