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Lightning is a dangerous yet poorly understood natural phenomenon. Lightning forms a network of plasma channels propagating away from the initiation point with both positively and negatively charged ends-called positive and negative leaders 1 . Negative leaders propagate in discrete steps, emitting copious radio pulses in the 30-300-megahertz frequency band 2-8 that can be remotely sensed and imaged with high spatial and temporal resolution 9-11 . Positive leaders propagate more continuously and thus emit very little high-frequency radiation 12 . Radio emission from positive leaders has nevertheless been mapped 13-15 , and exhibits a pattern that is different from that of negative leaders 11-13,16,17 . Furthermore, it has been inferred that positive leaders can become transiently disconnected from negative leaders 9,12,16,18-20 , which may lead to current pulses that both reconnect positive leaders to negative leaders 11,16,17,20-22 and cause multiple cloud-to-ground lightning events 1 . The disconnection process is thought to be due to negative differential resistance 18 , but this does not explain why the disconnections form primarily on positive leaders 22 , or why the current in cloud-to-ground lightning never goes to zero 23 . Indeed, it is still not understood how positive leaders emit radio-frequency radiation or why they behave differently from negative leaders. Here we report three-dimensional radio interferometric observations of lightning over the Netherlands with unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution. We find small plasma structures-which we call 'needles'-that are the dominant source of radio emission from the positive leaders. These structures appear to drain charge from the leader, and are probably the reason why positive leaders disconnect from negative ones, and why cloud-to-ground lightning connects to the ground multiple times.

Cosmic rays are the highest-energy particles found in nature. Measurements of the mass composition of cosmic rays with energies of 10(17)-10(18) electronvolts are essential to understanding whether they have galactic or extragalactic sources. It has also been proposed that the astrophysical neutrino signal comes from accelerators capable of producing cosmic rays of these energies. Cosmic rays initiate air showers--cascades of secondary particles in the atmosphere-and their masses can be inferred from measurements of the atmospheric depth of the shower maximum (Xmax; the depth of the air shower when it contains the most particles) or of the composition of shower particles reaching the ground. Current measurements have either high uncertainty, or a low duty cycle and a high energy threshold. Radio detection of cosmic rays is a rapidly developing technique for determining Xmax (refs 10, 11) with a duty cycle of, in principle, nearly 100 per cent. The radiation is generated by the separation of relativistic electrons and positrons in the geomagnetic field and a negative charge excess in the shower front. Here we report radio measurements of Xmax with a mean uncertainty of 16 grams per square centimetre for air showers initiated by cosmic rays with energies of 10(17)-10(17.5) electronvolts. This high resolution in Xmax enables us to determine the mass spectrum of the cosmic rays: we find a mixed composition, with a light-mass fraction (protons and helium nuclei) of about 80 per cent. Unless, contrary to current expectations, the extragalactic component of cosmic rays contributes substantially to the total flux below 10(17.5) electronvolts, our measurements indicate the existence of an additional galactic component, to account for the light composition that we measured in the 10(17)-10(17.5) electronvolt range.