Rare ‘Pillars of Light’ Over Himalayas Identified as Record-Breaking Red Sprites

A stunning display of 105 glowing red pillars captured in the skies over the Himalayas in May 2022 has finally been identified as the largest recorded outbreak of “red sprites” in South Asia. The phenomenon, observed near Pumoyongcuo Lake on the Tibetan Plateau, had baffled skywatchers until a recent scientific study confirmed the mysterious lights as rare upper-atmosphere lightning events.

Two amateur astrophotographers, Angel An and Shuchang Dong, managed to photograph and film the spectacular display on the night of May 19, 2022. Their images showed dozens of towering, crimson vertical streaks stretching high into the sky. The visual spectacle, which included 16 blue “secondary jets” and four rare green “ghost sprites,” has now been recognized as a scientifically significant event — the first of its kind to be documented in Asia.

According to researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China, these “sprites” were triggered by intense positive lightning strikes during a vast mesoscale convective storm system. The thunderstorm, stretching over 200,000 square kilometers across the Indo-Gangetic Plain and Tibetan Plateau, produced powerful cloud-to-ground lightning with peak currents exceeding +50 kiloamperes.

Red sprites are a rare type of transient luminous event that occur high above thunderstorms, at altitudes between 65 and 90 kilometers. Unlike typical lightning that descends from clouds, sprites burst upward and last only milliseconds, making them extremely difficult to observe and study.

What makes this event extraordinary is not only the number of sprites recorded but the precision with which they were analyzed. Using a novel frame-matching technique aligned with satellite data and star positions, scientists were able to timestamp nearly 70% of the sprites to within one second and trace them to specific lightning events on the ground.

The discovery highlights the Himalayas as a potential hotspot for upper-atmospheric electrical activity and underscores the value of citizen science in capturing rare natural phenomena. As researchers continue to investigate the global impact of such high-altitude lightning events, this record-setting sprite outbreak may reshape our understanding of storm systems and their interaction with the space-weather environment.