The Himalayas are a mystical wonder. Scientists, astrophotographers, mountaineers and several others have been intrigued by their might for years. In 2022, something strange happened in the Himalayas that caught the attention of the world. A "red lightning" phenomenon was photographed from near a lake site in the southern Tibetan plateau.

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There was no explanation for these "red sprites" back then. Now, a study has found that the red wonder that was seen in the Himalayas was linked to thunderstorms. It has been published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.

The celestial wonder happened on the night of 19 May 2022. Two astrophotographers were near the Pumoyongcuo Lake in Tibet at the time and saw the "dancing red sprites" above the Himalayas. They captured the atmospheric phenomenon in their cameras. The lighting appeared like jellyfish and looked quite scary.

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The photo went on to win in the Skyscapes category of the 2023 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition 

Red flashes above Himalayas

The study notes that the vivid red flashes were formed by electrical discharges, resulting in their appearance above the thunderstorms. Besides the red sprites, 16 rare secondary jets were also spotted during the same event. The most wondrous appearance was made by the green airglow called "ghosts" at the base of the ionosphere, the first time it was recorded in Asia.

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“Nearly half of these events involved dancing sprites, with an additional 16 uncommon secondary jets and at least four extremely rare green emissions called ‘ghosts’ observed following the associated sprites,” authors of the study said.

Scientists used the photos of the event to analyse their origin. Since there were no exact timestamps available, researchers synchronised video time using satellite trajectories and star field analysis. This helped them know precisely at what time the sprites occurred and then linked them to their parent lightning discharges. 

They found that the sprites were triggered by a "high-peak current" positive cloud-to-ground lightning strikes within a massive convective system that spanned a cloud area of over 200,000sqkm.

The convective complex that triggered the parent lightning discharges stretched from the Ganges Plain to the southern foothills of the Tibetan Plateau, the study says.

The researchers think that the discovery shows that storms in the Himalayas can produce much more complex phenomena, just like the red sprites.