Until recently it seemed obvious the solution to the mystery of ball lightning lay in the province of physics, because of the obvious link with electromagnetic radiation. This is being hailed as a major breakthrough, as it appears to vindicate a theory for the origin of ball lightning put forward more than a decade ago. These revealed a mix of silicon, iron and calcium – all components of the soil blasted by the original bolt of lightning. Within a fraction of a second, it had formed into a glowing purple-white sphere about 5 metres across, travelling across the sky at about 30kph.Īfter about a second it started to shrink and fade, its colour turning to orange, then red before vanishing.īut the big breakthrough has come from the spectrographic observations, which showed the different types of atoms caught up within the ball.
In their study, published in the latest issue of Physical Review Letters, the team reports that the ball was spawned by a standard cloud-to-ground lightning bolt. The ball floated through the air, and then, just 1.6 seconds later, vanished.Īll too often, eye-witnesses – such as American writer Mike Fook, who graphically described his own encounter with ball lightning in Thailand last April – have admitted being too stunned to record more than the most basic facts about what they have seen.īut the high-speed equipment of the Chinese scientists had no problem collecting a wealth of data. Their aim was to observe lightning bolts with high-speed instruments able to reveal their spectra, which shows the types of atoms caught up in the bolts.īy pure luck, one of the lightning strikes witnessed by the team was followed by the emergence, about a kilometre away, of a glowing ball. In July 2012, a team led by Jianyong Cen of Northwest Normal University, China, was carrying out a study of the thunderstorms that break out over the Tibetan Plateau north of the Himalayas. The breakthrough has come through the same kind of chance encounter experienced by eye-witnesses.
The sceptics are on the back foot following the first detailed scientific observation of the phenomenon. Not surprisingly, such reports were long dismissed as fantasies.īut scientists have now accepted that ball lightning is real.
BALL OF LIGHT FLOATING FULL
One report from the 1930s describes a glowing ball the size of an orange descending into a barrel full of water and bringing it to the boil. Some point to a frightening amount of energy crammed into the benign-looking exterior. Others describe their flight into trees, which were then blasted apart by the encounter, or their entry into homes by burning through windows.
Some describe the spheres eerily floating across the landscape as if searching for something, before fading out. But very occasionally, it proves to be a once-in-a-lifetime encounter with one of nature’s most enigmatic phenomena – ball lightning.Īstonishing accounts of glowing spheres of light emerging during violent thunderstorms and flying through the air have been documented since the time of Aristotle. Silicone Button:We updated to a soft silicone button, no need to press hard to operate, it’s easier to use.Anyone who has been stuck in a thunderstorm knows the frisson of fear and wonder it creates. ( Please note, before putting into water, please close the battery lid completely to make the ball ight full waterproof)
BALL OF LIGHT FLOATING UPDATE
Feature:IP67 Waterproof : we update the waterproof structure, and use a thicker sealing ring, to make the ball light to better waterproof, no need to worry it leak again.
0 kommentar(er)
