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tends to be somewhat directional. It arcs down from the sky in cracking streams of electricity, the very symbol of the might of the storm., and scientists have just made a first measurement that can help us understand the way this powerful force of nature forms.
X-rays are a known accompaniment to lightning. We've detected them in downward, cloud-to-ground lightning, and in lightning triggered by rockets, in both cases during the downward negative dart-leader phase. And it's been detected in the dart leader phase of upward negative lightning. Because it's so high, and there are clear views from mountains nearby, it's an excellent spot for recording and analyzing the behavior of lightning. The researchers caught their four upward flashes using high-speed cameras; one flash was even recorded at a jaw-dropping 24,000 frames per second.
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