A gigantic lightning bolt that illuminated the sky from Texas to Kansas in October 2017 has been verified as the longest lightning flash on the planet, measuring an astonishing 829 kilometres (515 miles) over the Great Plains of North America.
The record-breaking megaflash beat the previous record by 61 kilometres. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) released the finding on Thursday. Despite the strike taking place nearly eight years ago, it was only recently found.
According to Science Alert, scientists used information from the GOES East weather satellite, which circulates 22,236 miles above Earth's surface, to identify the massive lightning bolt.
Scientists could monitor the megaflash using this satellite technology since it would have been impossible for them using traditional ground-based lightning detection networks that can only sense ground strikes.
We term it megaflash lightning and we're only just discovering the mechanisms of how and why it happens.
There is a likelihood that even more extreme conditions remain, and that we will become able to monitor them as more high-quality measurements of lightning are collected over the course of time," said geographical scientist Randy Cerveny from Arizona State University and the World Meteorological Organisation.
