Science phenomenon?

Question

is super lightning which stretches up right into space (goes completely through our atmosphere and does not go downward but instead upward) really possible ?

Answer 1

much, maybe most lightning is between clouds.

in order to have lightning, you need to separate electrical charges.

it's unlikely that electrical charges will get pushed up into space, to become one end of a lightning discharge.

Answer 2

sprites - called that very word, is the upwards strokes that you state. However they start high up in the atmosphere and go into the highest layers....

not from lower layers of the atmosphere

Answer 3

Not as such, no.  Though somebody could have been talking about something else that might look sort of like lightning.  Lightning happens when charge separation is created.  Usually that's from atmospheric motion working like rubbing fur, but could happen from something else that produces charge.  Then the charges ionize the air to produce a conductive channel and they flow to neutralize the charges on the ground or another cloud, etc.  In space, there isn't anything to hold a charge to act as one pole of the lightning charge separation, also there is no air to act as a conductor.  So you can't have the charge in the first place, and if you did (charge up a satellite, perhaps?) you can't get transmission to form lightning.   Upward? Yes.  Chasing a rocket even? Maybe, but into space.. no.

That said, you do have lots of ions streaming around in space in the solar wind.  That creates Aurora Borealis, which looks similar but that isn't really lightning.  There can be other phenomenon that look like it.