Chinese Researchers Capture First Ball Lightning Spectrum, Revealing 3 Soil Elements
Updated
Updated · Boing Boing · Jul 24
Chinese Researchers Capture First Ball Lightning Spectrum, Revealing 3 Soil Elements
1 articles · Updated · Boing Boing · Jul 24
Summary
A 2014 observation on the Tibetan Plateau gave Chinese researchers the first optical spectrum of ball lightning after a glowing sphere formed while instruments were tracking ordinary lightning.
The spectrum showed silicon, iron and calcium, linking the phenomenon to soil and supporting a leading theory that lightning vaporizes ground silicon, which then burns slowly in air.
Ball lightning has long been hard to study because evidence is mostly eyewitness testimony describing glowing spheres that can drift for seconds, burst with a bang and sometimes smell of sulfur.
Those reports span centuries and include deadly incidents, making the spectrum capture a rare piece of direct evidence for a phenomenon that has largely resisted scientific explanation.