The first scientific description of ball lightning was given in the book "Thunder and Lightning" by the French physicist Francois Arago at the beginning of the 19th century. This is the first book on lightning whose electrical nature had been discovered half a century earlier. In Arago's book, two dozen cases of observation of ball lightning were described. Its properties are still difficult to determine, because the descriptions mostly belonged to people who were not scientists, and were usually made without hot pursuit.

Ball lightning as a difficult to study and therefore mysterious phenomenon has become popular in popular culture. There is even a James Bond movie with that title. But scientists who decide to investigate this phenomenon need to be very careful to take into account only really reliable data. Recently, the first full-fledged scientific observation of ball lightning was published, but it also raises questions.

What is called ball lightning

Eyewitnesses immediately call ball lightning any spherical luminous and moving phenomenon in the air. This may be an event that people saw after a lightning strike into a high-voltage line or into a tree. Also called an object that appeared in the room, flying out of the chimney, or emerged with a hiss from the outlet.

The researchers who collected information about this phenomenon relied on a rather unreliable source - eyewitness accounts. Witnesses of the phenomenon say that the size of ball lightning is from five centimeters to a meter. The glow lasts from fractions of a second to several seconds and even tens of seconds. Upon contact with ball lightning, people often experienced a strong electric shock, up to a fatal one. Some observers spoke about the hissing of ball lightning, that it was a tangle of luminous channels of blue color, but there were also red colors in large ball lightning. Ball lightning "passes" through glass and even seemed to be seen inside aircraft.

Ball lightning is most often seen after a normal lightning strike. But a lightning strike close up looks like a very bright flash of light. Therefore, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were scientists who believed that ball lightning was not a physical phenomenon, but an artifact, eye illumination (if you look at a bright flash lamp when photographing or a stroboscope at a discotheque, then for a few seconds there will be a feeling of a moving light spot in eyes, regardless of whether the eyes are closed or open).

Ball lightning

// wikimedia.org

What is the main problem of ball lightning

The great interest in ball lightning is caused not by the fact that it has the shape of a ball, but by the fact that the nature of its long lifetime is still incomprehensible. In general, in nature, if you do not have a dedicated direction, many phenomena take the form of a ball, for example, a drop when falling. There are no serious problems to create a spherical plasma formation between two electrodes with the help of low-current electric arcs for any amount of time. The same applies to a spherical plasma formation in free space, supported by a beam of electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range (with great ingenuity, it can be created even in a microwave oven, which was once done by Japanese scientists). In these phenomena, electromagnetic energy is supplied to the discharge plasma from the outside, and there are no problems with maintaining such a plasma.

But most researchers and especially "amateurs" proceed from the fact that no external energy is supplied to ball lightning. Plasma is a gas in which there are many free electrons, and therefore the plasma has a high conductivity, a significant current flows through it, as if through a wire with high resistance. If you stop supplying energy to the plasma, then in a few millionths of a second, the electrons will disappear, the current will stop, and the plasma will go out. And if this is so, then it is necessary to explain why ball lightning, if it is a plasma formation, lives for so long.

There are many amazing optical and electrical atmospheric phenomena. For example, the fires of St. Elmo, which "on the night before the storm on the mast are burning," as in the song of Bulat Okudzhava. For most of them, convincing physical explanations have been found. Scientists understand how even such an infrequent phenomenon as ordinary linear lightning can be studied: about a hundred discharges occur on Earth every second. A thundercloud forms gradually, and the place from which lightning discharges will arise can be predicted with good accuracy by the change in the electric field on the Earth and the movement of hydrometeors (drops, ice, snowflakes, snow pellets, and so on) in a thunderstorm cell, where the main electric charge accumulates. The lenses of various physical devices can be directed to this place.

Saint Elmo's fire

// wikipedia.org

Often, during a thunderstorm, lightning starts from tall buildings and television towers (more than two hundred meters), on the tips of which you can also put devices. In addition, scientists have already learned how to call lightning from a thundercloud "on themselves" for sixty years, that is, to create the so-called trigger lightning. Despite this, many of the key problems of conventional lightning are still poorly understood, let alone ball lightning. Since its nature is incomprehensible, it is not clear where to expect it, armed with instruments.

Main hypotheses

At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a hypothesis in which it was assumed that due to the large distance from which ball lightning is usually observed, we do not see how a thin plasma channel stretches from the cloud to it - thanks to its current, the existence of ball lightning is maintained. Now scientists know quite a lot about the current of ordinary lightning and have established that the discharge lasts a maximum of a second, while it will consist of many separate bright strokes with a large current, between which there are breaks, during which the current to the ground practically stops. But ball lightning with a lifetime of ten seconds or more was recorded, while no strong lightning strikes through them were observed, otherwise the witnesses of such events would simply receive electric shocks of such strength that they would not be able to tell about their impressions later.

Also, scientists are well aware of the size of the charges accumulated in the cloud from ground and aircraft observations, and there are not so many of them there either to ensure a long life of plasma formations. It turns out that it is still impossible to explain the maintenance of life of ball lightning with the help of known manifestations of natural atmospheric electricity. Therefore, many exotic explanations of the nature of ball lightning have appeared, including from scientists who fell ill with this phenomenon, from other areas of physics, who do not really understand atmospheric electricity and do not take into account all the accumulated observational material in their hypotheses.

For example, Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa, academician and Nobel laureate, suggested that ball lightning is supported by a beam of microwave radiation, as in a microwave oven, and microwave radiation itself comes from lightning. But when studying lightning, it was not possible to detect any serious microwave radiation fluxes. Microwave radiation is easily measured over long distances, as it is used to detect aircraft, missiles, and measure the speed of vehicles.

Some scientists involved in nuclear physics have suggested that ball lightning has a nuclear energy source. But nuclear processes are a monstrous energy that cannot be generated by lightning. In addition, it creates radioactivity, which is also easy to measure. In places where ball lightning was observed, several attempts were made to measure radioactivity, but it did not exceed the natural background.

If ball lightning is a physical phenomenon, then from several thousand reliable observations it is possible to deduce its basic properties. Therefore, a scientist who claims to explain the mechanism of ball lightning must not only propose some new unusual source of internal energy that supports ball lightning, but also explain other established properties of ball lightning within the framework of this hypothesis. Almost no one presenting alternative hypotheses does this, so their ideas hang in the air.

Martin Youman, one of the most famous modern experts in the study of lightning, together with colleagues initiated triggered lightning by launching a rocket with a grounded wire into the cloud, receiving a powerful discharge between specially shaped electrodes, but they did not succeed in creating ball lightning.

Important but controversial evidence

In 2012, Chinese scientists filmed linear lightning with a spectrograph and a high-speed camera and recorded some spherical phenomenon that appeared at the moment ordinary linear lightning struck the ground. This is very important evidence. Their results were published in the most prestigious journal in physics - Physical Review Letters, and the editors left the term "ball lightning" in the title, which indicates the recognition by serious physicists of the possibility of the existence of this phenomenon. The paper was titled Observation of the Optical and Spectral Characteristics of Ball Lightning, PRL 112, 035001 (2014) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.035001).

The spectrum of ball lightning caused by a lightning strike into the soil

// wikipedia.org

The recording, which shows a spherical glow, lasts one and a half seconds, which is a lot. A luminous formation appeared from the channel of linear lightning directly near the surface of the earth. According to their measurements, the size of the ball formation was at first more than ten meters, and after a whole second more than five meters, and this is a lot for ball lightning.

The ball lightning shone for a whole second almost evenly, which is absolutely impossible without an influx of external energy. It was possible to fix the spectral lines associated with the material of the soil where linear lightning struck, and to remove the spectrum of "ball lightning" (silicon, iron, calcium). Moreover, the spectral lines were present all the time of recording, which means that the plasma supporting this glow existed for the same amount of time. Such a spectrum cannot be explained by any combustion. The color of the fireball changed from purple to red. The luminous formation was moving at a speed of about nine meters per second.

I would like to congratulate the Chinese colleagues on their remarkable success, but in their work itself there is a rather strange graph of fluctuations in the luminosity of "ball lightning" with a period of about 100 Hz all the time of a bright glow, which is proportional to the industrial frequency of power lines (50 Hz). The authors honestly write that twenty meters from the place where the linear lightning struck and this plasma formation appeared, there is a high-voltage power line (TL) with a voltage of 35 kV.

Twenty meters is not a very long distance, and a lightning channel can pass through it on wet ground, reaching a power line support and damaging it. As a result, the current from the power transmission line can connect to the point of contact of the lightning channel with the ground, where the "ball lightning" existed. It turns out, and in this experiment it cannot be ruled out that the plasma formation, called ball lightning by the authors, is not a completely natural phenomenon, but, perhaps, is supplied with the energy of the current coming from a power line pierced by lightning. Then it is clear why the plasma lived for so long: it was powered by industrial electricity.

It is a pity that the authors did not write in the article whether they contacted the electric power industry, who were supposed to fix the breakdown of the power line, if there was one. In any case, this is important evidence in favor of the plasma nature, if not of the "ball lightning" itself, then of ball plasma phenomena that can be generated by linear lightning when it strikes high-voltage power lines or near them.

Chemical hypothesis

At present, the most consistent is the hypothesis of the chemical nature of the energy source of ball lightning. Chemical reactions can take a relatively long time until the chemicals involved in the reactions are exhausted. For example, such a process can be a specific form of spherical combustion (it was possible to create spherical forms of ignition of combustible gases in laboratory conditions that did not explode and existed for seconds, moving through the laboratory chamber).

Suppose lightning strikes a region of marshes, where vapors and accumulations of combustible gases such as methane are quite often observed. Due to the high temperature during a lightning strike, this gas ignites and burns further, resembling a gas stove burner that has had its lid removed. After all, this way gas can burn for hours if there is an influx of gas from inside the swamp.

But if we consider ball lightning as a form of combustion, then how to explain its electrical manifestations up to the defeat of people and animals in contact with ball lightning? It is also very difficult to realize in nature the movement of a burning ball, similar to those described by observers. Gases usually explode or burn quickly. Therefore, the chemical hypothesis cannot explain many important properties of ball lightning, but it removes the problem of the lifetime that exists in the plasma hypothesis.

The advantage of the chemical hypothesis is that it is not necessary to involve quite exotic ideas like "getting energy from a vacuum" or "cold fusion". But this hypothesis does not correspond to the reliable Chinese experiment described above, since there were no swamps there, and the combustion spectrum is fundamentally different from the spectrum recorded by the Chinese. However, the Chinese experiment cannot be fully trusted.

Simulation of ball lightning in the laboratory

Several groups around the world have tried to simulate ball lightning in the laboratory. There are researchers who claim that they managed to create ball lightning with a powerful discharge in water vapor. They even posted pictures on the internet. But there were no serious publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals like the Chinese one on this topic - publications where their experiments were described in detail, the properties of the plasma were recorded with modern instruments, the absence of additional energy supply from external sources would be guaranteed, and so on.

Ball lightning effect created by the discharge of a high-voltage capacitor in a tank of water

// wikimedia.org

It is not enough to obtain an interesting long-lived globular luminous phenomenon in the laboratory - at the same time, serious arguments must be made in favor of the fact that something that we have created in the laboratory is related to a natural phenomenon called ball lightning. The spark between the balls, slipping in the electrophore machine, has, contrary to the assertions of school teachers, very little to do with lightning. She cannot explain not only how lightning is born, but also how it breaks through the gap cloud - earth. The same applies to the creation in the laboratory of a long-lived spherical luminous formation. It is also necessary to prove that the experiment simulates a natural phenomenon.

And yet, ball lightning still poses a serious challenge to scientists. Today it is believed that there is so much evidence for the existence of ball lightning that it is impossible to dismiss them. Perhaps ball lightning is not just a phenomenon, but a complex combination of known physical phenomena that we cannot yet trace and decipher.

DOES BALL LIGHTNING EXIST?

In the long history of the study of ball lightning, the most frequently asked questions have not been how this ball is formed or what its properties are, although these problems are quite complex. But most often the question was raised: “Does ball lightning really exist?” This persistent skepticism is largely due to the difficulties encountered in trying to experimentally study ball lightning using existing methods, as well as the lack of a theory that would give a sufficiently complete or even satisfactory explanation of this phenomenon.

Those who deny the existence of ball lightning explain reports about it by optical illusions or by erroneous identification of other natural luminous bodies with it. Often, cases of the possible appearance of ball lightning are attributed to meteors. In some cases, phenomena described in the literature as fireballs appear to have actually been meteors. However, meteor trails are almost invariably observed as straight lines, while the path characteristic of ball lightning, on the contrary, is most often curved. Further, ball lightning appears, with very rare exceptions, during thunderstorms, while meteors were observed under such conditions only occasionally. An ordinary lightning discharge, the direction of the channel of which coincides with the observer's line of sight, may appear to be a ball. As a result, an optical illusion can occur - the dazzling light of the flash is stored in the eye as an image, even when the observer changes the direction of the line of sight. That is why it has been suggested that the false image of the ball seems to be moving along a complex trajectory.

In the first detailed discussion of the problem of ball lightning, Arago (Dominique François Jean Arago, a French physicist and astronomer who published the first detailed work on ball lightning in the world scientific literature, summarizing the 30 observations of eyewitnesses he collected, which laid the foundation for the study of this natural phenomenon) touched on this issue. In addition to a number of apparently reliable observations, he noted that an observer who sees the ball descend at a certain angle from the side cannot have an optical illusion like the one described above. Arago's arguments, apparently, seemed convincing enough to Faraday: rejecting the theories according to which ball lightning is an electric discharge, he emphasized that he did not at all deny the existence of these spheres.

50 years after the publication of Arago's review of the problem of ball lightning, it was again suggested that the image of ordinary lightning moving directly towards the observer would persist for a long time, and Lord Kelvin in 1888 at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science argued that ball lightning - it is an optical illusion generated by bright light. The fact that in many reports the same dimensions of ball lightning were given was attributed to the fact that this illusion is associated with a blind spot in the eye.

A discussion between supporters and opponents of these points of view took place at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in 1890. The topic of one of the reports submitted to the Academy was the numerous luminous spheres that appeared in a tornado and resembled ball lightning. These luminous spheres flew into houses through chimneys, punched round holes in windows, and generally exhibited very unusual properties attributed to ball lightning. After the report, one of the members of the Academy noted that the amazing properties of ball lightning, which were discussed, should be taken critically, since observers, apparently, became victims of optical illusions. In a heated discussion that broke out, the observations made by uneducated peasants were declared not worthy of attention, after which the former emperor of Brazil, a foreign member of the Academy, who was present at the meeting, declared that he, too, had seen ball lightning.

Many reports of natural luminous spheres were explained by the fact that observers mistakenly took the fires of St. Elma. Lights of St. An elma is a relatively frequently observed luminous region formed by a corona discharge at the end of a grounded object, say a pole. They occur when the intensity of the atmospheric electric field increases significantly, for example, during a thunderstorm. In especially strong fields, which are often near mountain peaks, this form of discharge can be observed on any object that rises above the ground, and even on the hands and heads of people. However, if we consider the moving spheres as the fires of St. Elm, it must be assumed that the electric field is continuously moving from one object, which plays the role of a discharge electrode, to another similar object. The message that such a ball moved over a row of fir trees was tried to be explained by the fact that a cloud passed over these trees with a field associated with it. Proponents of this theory considered the lights of St. Elma and all other luminous balls that separated from the original place of attachment and flew through the air. Since a corona discharge necessarily requires an electrode, the separation of such balls from a grounded tip indicates that some other phenomenon is involved, perhaps a different form of discharge. There are several reports of fireballs that were initially on points that acted as electrodes, and then moved freely in the manner described above.

In nature, other luminous objects were also observed, which were sometimes mistaken for ball lightning. For example, the nightjar is a nocturnal insectivorous bird, to whose feathers sometimes luminous rot from the hollow in which it nests sometimes stick, flies in zigzags above the ground, swallowing insects; from a certain distance it can be mistaken for ball lightning.

The fact that ball lightning may turn out to be something else in each specific case is a very strong argument against its existence. A prominent researcher of high voltage currents once remarked that, while observing thunderstorms and taking panoramic photographs of them for many years, he had never seen ball lightning. In addition, when talking with alleged eyewitnesses of ball lightning, this researcher was always convinced that their observations could have a different and well-founded interpretation. The constant resurgence of such arguments emphasizes the importance of detailed and reliable observations of ball lightning.

Most often, the observations on which the knowledge of ball lightning is based were questioned because these mysterious balls were seen only by people who did not have any scientific training. This opinion turned out to be completely wrong. The appearance of ball lightning was observed from a distance of only a few tens of meters by a scientist, an employee of a German laboratory studying atmospheric electricity; lightning was also observed by an employee of the Tokyo Central Meteorological Observatory. Eyewitnesses of ball lightning were also a meteorologist, physicists, chemist, paleontologist, director of the meteorological observatory and several geologists. Among scientists of various specialties, ball lightning was more often seen and reported by astronomers.

In very rare cases, when ball lightning appeared, the eyewitness managed to get pictures. These photographs, as well as other information relating to ball lightning, often received insufficient attention.

The collected information convinced most meteorologists of the groundlessness of their skepticism. On the other hand, there is no doubt that many scientists working in other fields hold a negative view, both because of intuitive skepticism and because of the unavailability of ball lightning data.

Human fear most often comes from ignorance. Few people are afraid of ordinary lightning - a spark of electrical discharge - and everyone knows how to behave during a thunderstorm. But what is ball lightning, is it dangerous, and what to do if you encounter this phenomenon?

It is very easy to recognize ball lightning, despite the variety of its types. Usually it has, as you can easily guess, the shape of a ball, glowing like a 60-100 watt light bulb. Much less often there are lightning similar to a pear, a mushroom or a drop, or such an exotic form as a pancake, bagel or lens. But the variety of colors is simply amazing: from transparent to black, but shades of yellow, orange and red are still in the lead. The color can be uneven, and sometimes fireballs change it like a chameleon.

There is no need to talk about the constant size of the plasma ball either, it varies from a few centimeters to several meters. But usually people encounter ball lightning with a diameter of 10-20 centimeters.

Worst of all in describing lightning is their temperature and mass. According to scientists, the temperature can be in the range from 100 to 1000 °C. But at the same time, people who encountered ball lightning at arm's length rarely noted at least some heat emanating from them, although logically, they should have received burns. The same mystery is with the mass: no matter what size the lightning was, it weighs no more than 5-7 grams.

If you have ever seen from afar an object similar to what MirSovetov described, congratulations - it most likely was ball lightning.

The behavior of ball lightning is unpredictable. They refer to phenomena that appear when they want, where they want and do what they want. So, earlier it was believed that ball lightnings are born only during thunderstorms and always accompany linear (ordinary) lightning. However, it gradually became clear that they can appear in sunny clear weather. It was believed that lightning was "attracted" to places of high voltage with a magnetic field - electrical wires. But there were cases when they actually appeared in the middle of an open field ...

Fireballs erupt in an incomprehensible way from electrical outlets in the house and "leak" through the smallest cracks in the walls and glass, turning into "sausages" and then again taking their usual form. At the same time, there are no melted traces left ... They either hang quietly in one place at a short distance from the ground, or rush somewhere at a speed of 8-10 meters per second. Having met a person or an animal on its way, lightning can stay away from them and behave peacefully, they can curiously circle nearby, or they can attack and burn or kill, after which they either melt as if nothing had happened, or explode with a terrible roar. However, despite the frequent stories about those injured or killed by ball lightning, their number is relatively small - only 9 percent. Most often, lightning, having circled the area, disappears without causing any harm. If she appeared in the house, then it usually “leaks” back into the street and only melts there.

Also, many inexplicable cases have been recorded when fireballs are "attached" to a particular place or person, and appear regularly. At the same time, in relation to a person, they are divided into two types - those that attack him in each of their appearances and those that do no harm or attack people who are nearby. There is another mystery: ball lightning, having killed a person, is completely without any trace on the body, and the corpse does not stiffen or decompose for a long time ...

Some scientists say lightning just "stops time" in the body.

Ball lightning is a unique and peculiar phenomenon. Over the history of mankind, more than 10 thousand evidence of meetings with "intelligent balls" has accumulated. However, until now, scientists cannot boast of great achievements in the study of these objects.

There are many disparate theories about the origin and "life" of ball lightning. From time to time, in laboratory conditions, it turns out to create objects that are similar in appearance and properties to ball lightning - plasmoids. Nevertheless, no one could provide a coherent picture and a logical explanation for this phenomenon.

The most famous and developed before the rest is the theory of Academician P. L. Kapitsa, which explains the appearance of ball lightning and some of its features by the occurrence of short-wave electromagnetic oscillations in the space between thunderclouds and the earth's surface. However, Kapitsa failed to explain the nature of those very short-wave oscillations. In addition, as noted above, ball lightning does not necessarily accompany ordinary lightning and can appear in clear weather. However, most of the other theories are based on the findings of Academician Kapitsa.

A hypothesis different from Kapitza's theory was created by B. M. Smirnov, who claims that the core of ball lightning is a cellular structure with a strong frame and low weight, and the frame is made of plasma filaments.

D. Turner explains the nature of ball lightning by thermochemical effects occurring in saturated water vapor in the presence of a sufficiently strong electric field.

However, the theory of the New Zealand chemists D. Abrahamson and D. Dinnis is considered the most interesting. They found that when lightning strikes soil containing silicates and organic carbon, a ball of silicon and silicon carbide fibers is formed. These fibers gradually oxidize and begin to glow. This is how a "fire" ball is born, heated to 1200-1400 ° C, which slowly melts. But if the temperature of the lightning goes off scale, then it explodes. However, even this coherent theory does not confirm all cases of lightning occurrence.

For official science, ball lightning still continues to be a mystery. Maybe that's why so many near-scientific theories and even more fictions appear around her.

We are not going to tell stories here about fiery-eyed demons that leave a smell of brimstone, hellhounds, and "firebirds" as fireballs are sometimes represented. However, their strange behavior leads many researchers of this phenomenon to assume that lightning "thinks". At a minimum, fireballs are considered instruments for the study of our world. As a maximum - energy entities that also collect some information about our planet and its inhabitants.

An indirect confirmation of these theories is the fact that any collection of information is work with energy.

And the unusual property of lightning to disappear in one place and appear instantly in another. There are suggestions that the same ball lightning "dives" into a certain part of space - another dimension that lives according to other physical laws - and, having dropped information, appears again in our world at a new point. Yes, and the actions of lightning on the living beings of our planet are also meaningful - they do not touch some, they “touch” others, and some simply tear out pieces of flesh, as if for genetic analysis!

The frequent appearance of ball lightning during thunderstorms is also easily explained. During bursts of energy - electric discharges - portals from a parallel dimension open, and their collectors of information about our world get into our world ...

The main rule when ball lightning appears - whether in an apartment or on the street - do not panic and do not make sudden movements. Don't run anywhere! Lightning is very susceptible to air turbulence, which we create when running and other movements, and which pull it along. You can break away from ball lightning only by car, but by no means on your own.

Try to quietly move out of the way of the lightning and stay away from it, but do not turn your back on it. If you are in an apartment - go to the window and open the window. With a high degree of probability, lightning will fly out.

Every day a person is faced with unusual natural phenomena. Some are dangerous. Others are beautiful in a way that takes your breath away. There are also rare, but therefore only more curious, phenomena, such as ball lightning or the northern lights. Their attractive power has given rise to a lot of myths and legends. How these miracles actually form, "RG" tried to figure it out with the help of science.

Lightning from socket

Even simple (linear) lightning is not a fully understood phenomenon, while ball lightning is a true mystery even at the current level of development of science.

Myths and legends of antiquity were presented in a variety of guises, but most often in the form of monsters with fiery eyes. The first documentary evidence of this phenomenon dates back to the times of the Roman Empire. And in the Russian archives it was first mentioned in 1663: in one of the monasteries came "a denunciation from priest Ivanishche" from the village of Novye Yergi, in which it was reported that "... fire fell on the ground in many yards, and on the tracks, and along mansions, like tows of grief, and people ran away from him, and he rolled after them, but did not burn anyone, and then rose up into the clouds.

Numerous eyewitnesses usually describe ball lightning in this way: a bright luminous ball, unrelated to any source of electricity, moves both horizontally and randomly. In rare cases, lightning "sticks", for example, to wires and moves along them. Often the ball enters the closed room through a gap smaller than its diameter. Lightning disappears just as strangely as it appears - it can explode, or it can simply go out. Another mystery of it is that, being a heated gas, lightning does not mix with the surrounding atmosphere, but has a fairly clear boundary of the "ball".

Lightning lives for about 10 seconds. When moving, it often emits a low crackle or hiss. And its most common colors are red, orange, yellow, white and blue. “In general, the color of ball lightning is not its characteristic feature and, in particular, does not say anything about its temperature, as well as about its composition. Most likely, it is determined by the presence of certain impurities,” he explains in his book on the nature of ball lightning. , Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Igor Stakhanov.

The luminous flux from ball lightning is on average comparable to that emitted by an electric lamp.

The amazing thing about ball lightning is that it radiates almost no heat at all. According to experts, people are misled by the intense glow: a person sees a "hot" ball and feels heat, which is not really there. Often, ball lightning passes at a distance of 10-20 centimeters from parts of the body that are not protected by clothing, for example, from the face, without causing any consequences. However, in direct contact with the object, damage is still possible: it happened that the ball flew out the window and burned through the curtain or melted metal objects. These evidences, scientists assure, speak only about the possibility of releasing significant energy, but by no means about the high temperature of the substance of the lightning itself.

The study of this mysterious phenomenon is complicated by the fact that it is almost impossible to obtain lightning in the laboratory, although attempts have been made since the time of Nikola Tesla. According to the researchers, in their work they can often rely only on the testimony of eyewitnesses, which, by the way, are many. Only in Russia live tens of thousands of people who have observed ball lightning with their own eyes. At the same time, only a small part of the witnesses can tell about its origin.

It is sometimes argued that a luminous ball appears at the branching point of the linear lightning channel. Often it appears from conductors - from a telephone, from a shield with meters, from an outlet (the most common option that eyewitnesses describe) and so on. Moreover, artificial balls arise, just like natural ones: where significant charges accumulate that cannot be neutralized. A similar process, for example, occurs during a short circuit.

"The slow spreading of these charges leads to coronation or the appearance of St. Elmo's fires, while the fast spreading leads to the appearance of ball lightning," explains Stakhanov.

So, according to the research of physicists, "ball lightning is a conducting medium with the density of air, at a temperature close to room temperature. Its molecules are metastable and release energy, which serves as a source of radiated heat and luminescence."

There are several more interesting theories of the origin of ball lightning. So, a number of researchers suggest that such lightning is a plasmoid, that is, a volume filled with high-temperature plasma held by its own magnetic field. The same magnetic field that prevents plasma particles from flying apart can isolate it from the surrounding air and prevent the energy from dissipating quickly. Opponents of this idea say that the problem of ball lightning has nothing to do with the implementation of controlled thermonuclear fusion.

Scientists also suggest that ball lightning may consist either of neutral molecules in the ground state, or of molecules excited to metastable levels. This is the so-called chemical hypothesis. So, Boris Smirnov, an outstanding scientist in the field of atomic physics, suggests that the energy of lightning is contained in ozone and is released during its decomposition. To obtain higher concentrations of ozone, according to Smirnov's theory, the excitation of oxygen by a lightning current is required.

heavenly fire

The rays of the aurora cover the entire sky .... Incredible beauty overflows will not leave anyone indifferent - even experienced researchers do not cease to be amazed at this amazing natural phenomenon. In the Northern Hemisphere, aurora is typical for Canada, Alaska, Norway, Finland and the polar part of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. You can observe the aurora in the Southern Hemisphere, for example, in Antarctica, less often - in the middle latitudes.

There are a lot of myths about this phenomenon. So, according to the legend of the inhabitants of the tundra, the northern lights are a fire that was lit by an eagle to help the grandfather and grandson, who were looking for a dog injured in the hunt in pitch darkness. Radiance illuminates the path for those who want to do a good deed. In Norse mythology, the northern lights are a harbinger of bad weather. And the Vikings identified this natural phenomenon with the god Odin.

Although the phrase "Northern Lights" sounds more familiar, there is also the Aurora Borealis. Until recently, it was believed that the auroras at the South and North Poles are identical. But when they began to observe it from space, it turned out that in many characteristics - configuration, intensity, glow - they differ.

The source of the radiance is the solar wind: the stream of charged particles (mostly protons and neutrons) that the sun emits into space. Solar particles enter the magnetosphere through the polar regions of the Earth and, if the energy charge is sufficient, they pass into the atmosphere, where they collide with gas atoms - this is how the glow occurs. At an altitude of about two hundred kilometers, oxygen atoms glow red, while those below glow green. The colors of the aurora depend on the elements involved in the process of its formation. So, nitrogen will glow with reddish or bluish hues.

On February 14, 2011, a strong flare was recorded on the Sun. The activity of the luminary has increased. Several pictures were taken from the International Space Station, which recorded the curious consequences of these outbreaks - aurora at an atypical height of 400 kilometers (with a traditional glow height of 70-80 kilometers).

The northern lights are a visible manifestation of space weather: the Sun is calm - there are no radiances, spots or flames appear on the Sun - wait for the lights on Earth. Despite the fact that the nature of this natural phenomenon has been studied quite well, a person has not yet learned to predict its occurrence with absolute certainty.

By the way, the aurora borealis is not only visible, but also heard. The northern tribes have long noticed that during the period when the sky is colored with lights, some people begin to behave strangely: they talk to non-existent interlocutors or completely abandon the outside world. Scientists explained this phenomenon by low-frequency electromagnetic waves that generate the northern lights. They are emitted in the range of 8-13 hertz, which is akin to the beta and alpha rhythms of the brain. The human ear does not perceive infrasound (the noise of the aurora arc becomes audible only when magnified by 2,000 times), but it can have the most unpredictable effects on the brain and cardiovascular system.

Despite the reasoned explanation, eyewitnesses who observed the aurora often say that it sounds exactly - something like a hiss is heard. The most plausible explanation for this mysterious phenomenon, scientists believe, is mutual interference in the brain. When the optic nerve is near the auditory nerve, mutual interference can occur between them, and the person has a sensation of sound when in fact it is not heard.

An interesting fact is that auroras can also occur on other planets of the solar system that have an atmosphere and a magnetic field: on Venus, Saturn and Jupiter.

deadly weather

For unknown reasons, once every three to seven years, the trade winds suddenly weaken, the balance is disturbed, and the warm waters of the western basin rush to the east, creating one of the strongest warm currents in the oceans. Over a huge area in the eastern Pacific Ocean, in the tropical and central equatorial parts, there is a sharp increase in the temperature of the surface layer of water. This is the onset of El Niño. Drought and rains, hurricanes, tornadoes and snowfalls are its main companions.

This meteorological phenomenon, according to scientists, affects almost every inhabitant of the planet. It has taken scientists over a hundred years to understand the true power of El Niño.

In the spring of 1998, Southern California was hit by torrential rains that never stopped. At the same time, the Australian Queensland suffered from the exact opposite problem - from an unprecedented drought. And these are just two examples of natural anomalies that swept the world that year. Peru and Kenya suffered from floods and the ensuing cholera, massive forest fires and thick smog caused drought in Indonesia .... The weather seemed to be out of control, but the scientists were sure that all these were links in the same chain. Then a phenomenon was discovered, known to fishermen for thousands of years, but hitherto not considered from a scientific point of view.

The coast of Peru is considered one of the richest regions in fish. However, with a periodicity of several years, a warm current appears in the surface waters, after which the marine life characteristic of these places disappears, rains begin, and grass grows violently on dry soils. It always happens at the same time of the year - around Christmas. Therefore, the mysterious phenomenon was called El Niño, which means "boy" in translation, and the capitalization indicates the baby Christ.

Until the 90s of the XIX century, the Peruvian anomaly did not excite the minds of the world. Then a British scientist named Herbert Walker became interested in the problem that existed in the largest colony of the empire - in India: here in 1877 there were no monsoon rains. The famine claimed 5 million lives. Again the tragedy repeated itself in 1899. The British government has given scientists the task of predicting the rainy seasons. Walker found that it was all about atmospheric pressure: when it rises in the central Pacific, it drops in Indonesia and Northern Australia. And vice versa. Thus, the existence of oscillations (fluctuations in properties) in atmospheric pressure with a frequency of 3-5 years was proved.

It was a real breakthrough, but contemporaries criticized the British idea. It took half a century and a bit of luck for the discovery to be reborn.

In 1957, the UN program in the Pacific Ocean installed several buoys to change temperature fluctuations. Just this year there was a major El Niño. So, quite by accident, unique data about this phenomenon were obtained. Scientists have discovered that changes off the coast of Peru are not local in nature, that during the El Niño period, warm layers of water from the Indonesian region move across the ocean and reach the Peruvian coast, and vice versa.

In the 1960s, the Norwegian scientist Jacob Bjerknis, who since 1940 headed the meteorological department of the University of California, collaborated with the commissions for catching tuna: he studied the periods of activity of fish, their susceptibility to climate change. The researcher collected all available data and for the first time linked changes in surface water temperature with changes in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.

Under normal conditions, warm waters remain in the western Pacific Basin, while the trade winds blow from east to west. This is how a low pressure zone forms around Indonesia - clouds and precipitation form. But with El Niño, the picture is just the opposite. This shift causes flooding in Peru, drought in Australia, and hurricanes in California.

El Niño has the power to change even the course of history. Scientists have found several confirmations of this: when, due to El Niño, the winter in Europe turned out to be severe, the starving peasants began to rebel - this is how the French Revolution began; in 1587-89, the Spanish armada was defeated not by the British fleet at all, but by the same notorious El Nino, changing the prevailing direction of the wind that filled the sails of the Spaniards; even the sinking of the Titanic is blamed on this weather event, which created unusually cold conditions in the north Atlantic.

sun illusionist

Parhelion is a form of halo, an optical phenomenon in which a luminous ring forms around a light source. During a parhelion, one or more additional false luminaries are observed in the sky. It is believed that this phenomenon is most often mistaken for UFOs. Indeed, outwardly it is a bit like the common image of flying saucers. In the old days, the halo, like many other celestial phenomena, was attributed the mystical meaning of signs, to which many chronicle evidence from different parts of the world is known. So, in the "Word of Igor's Campaign" it is said that before the offensive of the Polovtsy and the capture of Igor "four suns shone over the Russian land", which was perceived as a sign of impending great trouble.

With a halo, the sun looks like it is visible through a large lens. In fact, it is rather the effect of millions of lenses, which are ice crystals. Water, freezing in the upper atmosphere, forms microscopic flat, hexagonal ice crystals. They gradually descend to the ground, while for the most part they are oriented parallel to its surface. The gaze passes through this very plane formed by crystals that refract sunlight. Under favorable circumstances, false suns can be observed: the luminary is in the center, and a pair of its clearly visible twins are at the edges. Sometimes at the same time, a light circle, slightly colored in iridescent tones, encircling the sun appears.

By the way, clouds are not a prerequisite for the appearance of a halo. It can also be observed in a clear sky, if at the same time many individual ice crystals float high in the atmosphere. This happens on frosty winter days in clear weather.

A bright horizontal circle may appear around the sun, encircling the sky parallel to the horizon. "Special experiments that scientists have repeatedly conducted show that this circle is the result of reflection of the sun's rays from the side faces of hexagonal ice crystals floating in the air in a vertical position. The sun's rays fall on such crystals and are reflected from them like from a mirror. And since this Since the mirror is special, it is made up of an innumerable mass of ice particles and, moreover, for some time appears to lie in the plane of the horizon, then a person sees the reflection of the solar disk in the same plane. , but in another plane - its twin in the form of a large bright circle," - this is how the researchers explain the phenomenon.

The halo can be seen in the form of a pillar. For this effect, we must thank the ice crystals, which have the shape of a plate. Their lower faces reflect the light of the sun that has already hidden behind the horizon, and instead of it, a luminous path is visible for some time going into the sky from the horizon - an image of the solar disk distorted beyond recognition. Simply put, this is the same "lunar path" that can be observed on the sea surface, only in the sky and generated by the sun.

The halo can also be rainbow colored. Such a circle occurs when there are many hexagonal ice crystals in the atmosphere, which do not reflect, but refract the sun's rays like a glass prism. Most of the rays are scattered, but some of them, having passed through the prisms in the air and refracted, reach us, and we see a rainbow circle around the sun. Iridescent because, passing through a prism, a white light beam decomposes into its own colors of the spectrum.

It is curious that halos are often observed in front of cyclones (in cirrostratus clouds at a height of 5-10 kilometers of their warm front), which, therefore, can serve as a sign of their approach.

The sun is generally rich in mysterious and beautiful "deeds". For example, a green beam - the rarest optical phenomenon - is a flash of green that appears when the sun disappears behind the horizon (usually sea) or when it appears from behind the horizon. It usually only lasts a few seconds. To see the green beam, three conditions must be met: clean air, an open horizon (on the sea without waves or in the steppe) and the side of the horizon where the sunrise or sunset occurs, free from clouds.

Where do the stones go

East of California's Sierra Nevada, on the dry Lake Racetrack Playa, lies Death Valley National Park, the title holder for the driest and hottest place in the Western Hemisphere. The ambiguous name of these places is due to settlers who crossed the desert territory in 1849, trying to get to the gold mines by the shortest route. Some stayed in the valley forever…. It was in this ominous place that the rarest geological phenomenon was discovered - sliding or creeping stones.

Cobblestones weighing up to thirty kilograms in an incomprehensible way slowly move along the clay bottom of the lake, which is confirmed by the paths that remain behind them and have a length of up to 250 meters. At the same time, stone wanderers crawl in different directions, at different speeds, and can even return back to the place of departure. The tracks that they leave no wider than 30 centimeters and less than 2.5 centimeters deep can take years to form. The movement of stones has never been captured on camera, but there is no doubt about the existence of this phenomenon.

It is predictable that earlier the phenomenon was "explained" by the influence of some supernatural forces. But at the beginning of the 20th century, scientists began to study the nature of the miracle. At first it was assumed that the driving force of the stones is the magnetic fields of the Earth. The mechanism itself could not be explained by scientists. As life has shown, the theory was untenable, although for its time it fit into the picture of the world: the electromagnetic approach to the study of certain phenomena then dominated the scientific community.

The first monumental works describing the trajectories of stones appeared in the late 1940s and 1950s, but it took years and years for researchers to get closer to unraveling the phenomenon. The most popular theory was that the wind helped move the stones. The clay bottom of Racetrack Playa - the place of the "walk" - is covered with a network of cracks and remains dry almost all the time, the vegetation here is extremely sparse. Sometimes, nevertheless, the soil here is moistened due to rare precipitation, the friction force decreases, and strong gusts of wind move stones from their "familiar places".

The theory had a lot of opponents, but the most reasoned refutation was found only in the 1970s by American scientists Robert Sharp and Dwight Carey. Over the years of studying this desert area and observing the stones, they came to the conclusion that one wind is not enough here and assumed (and even proved by experience) that the wind was pushing not so much the stones themselves, but the pieces of ice that form on them, increase the contact area with the atmosphere and at the same time facilitate sliding.

In 1993, Paula Messina, a professor at the University of San Jose, used the capabilities of a GPS system to study the movement of stones. She studied the change in the coordinates of 162 boulders and found that their movement is affected by what part of Racetrack Playa they are in. According to the created model, the wind over the lake after the storm is divided into two streams, which is associated with the peculiarities of the geometry of the mountains surrounding Racetrack Playa. The stones, localized along the edges of the lake, move in different, almost perpendicular, directions. And in the center, the winds collide and twist in a kind of tornado, causing the stones to rotate as well.

True, so far there is no clear explanation for the curious fact that some stones crawl through the desert, while others do not. If all boulders are equally affected by wind eddies, why don't they all move? This remains to be seen.

What is hidden behind the mystical appearance of a mysterious bundle of energy that medieval Europeans were so afraid of?

There is an opinion that these are messengers of extraterrestrial civilizations or, in general, beings endowed with intelligence. But is it really so?

Let's deal with this unusually interesting phenomenon.

What is ball lightning

Ball lightning is a rare natural phenomenon that looks like it glows and floats into a formation. It's a glowing ball that appears out of nowhere and disappears into thin air. Its diameter varies from 5 to 25 cm. Briefly.

Typically, ball lightning can be seen just before, after, or during a thunderstorm. The duration of the phenomenon itself ranges from a few seconds to a couple of minutes.

The lifespan of ball lightning tends to increase with its size and decrease with its brightness. It is believed that fireballs, which have a distinct orange or blue color, last longer than ordinary ones.

Ball lightning typically travels parallel to the ground, but can also move in vertical bursts.

It usually descends from the clouds, but it can also suddenly materialize outdoors or indoors; it can enter a room through a closed or open window, thin non-metallic walls, or a chimney.

Ball Lightning Mystery

In the first half of the 19th century, the French physicist, astronomer and naturalist Francois Arago, perhaps the first in civilization, collected and systematized all the evidence of the appearance of ball lightning known at that time. In his book, more than 30 cases of observation of ball lightning were described.

The suggestion put forward by some scientists that ball lightning is a plasma ball was rejected, since "a hot ball of plasma would have to rise up like a balloon", and this is exactly what ball lightning does not do.

Some physicists have suggested that ball lightning appears due to electrical discharges. For example, a Russian physicist believed that ball lightning is a discharge that occurs without electrodes and is caused by microwaves of unknown origin that exist between clouds and the earth.

According to another theory, outdoor fireballs are caused by an atmospheric maser (microwave quantum generator).

Two scientists from - John Abramson and James Dinnis - believe that fireballs consist of ragged balls of burning silicon, created by ordinary lightning striking the ground.

According to their theory, when lightning strikes the ground, it breaks down into tiny particles of silicon and its constituents, oxygen and carbon.

These charged particles join into chains that continue to form already fibrous networks. They gather together in a luminous "ragged" ball, which is picked up by air currents.

There it floats like ball lightning or a burning ball of silicon, radiating the energy it has absorbed from the lightning in the form of heat and light until it burns out.

In the scientific community, there are many hypotheses about the origin of ball lightning, which make no sense to talk about, since all of them are only assumptions.

Ball lightning of Nikola Tesla

The first experiments to study this mysterious phenomenon can be considered works at the end of the 19th century. In his brief note, he reports that, under certain conditions, igniting a gas discharge, he, after turning off the voltage, observed a spherical luminous discharge with a diameter of 2-6 cm.

However, Tesla (see) did not report the details of his experience, so it was difficult to reproduce this installation.

Eyewitnesses claimed that Tesla could make fireballs for several minutes, while he took them in his hands, put them in a box, covered them with a lid and took them out again.

Historical evidence

Many physicists of the 19th century, including Kelvin and Faraday, during their lifetimes were inclined to believe that ball lightning is either an optical illusion or a phenomenon of a completely different, non-electrical nature.

However, the number of cases, the detail of the description of the phenomenon and the reliability of the evidence increased, which attracted the attention of many scientists, including well-known physicists.

Here are some reliable historical evidence of the observation of ball lightning.

Death of Georg Richmann

In 1753 Georg Richman, a full member of the Academy of Sciences, died from a ball lightning strike. He invented a device for studying atmospheric electricity, so when he heard at the next meeting that it was coming, he urgently went home with an engraver to capture the phenomenon.

During the experiment, a bluish-orange ball flew out of the device and hit the scientist right in the forehead. There was a deafening roar, similar to the shot of a gun. Richman dropped dead.

The Warren Hastings incident

A British publication reported that in 1809 the Warren Hastings was "attacked by three balls of fire" during a storm. The crew saw one of them go down and kill a man on deck.

The one who decided to take the body was hit by the second ball; he was knocked down and had minor burns on his body. The third ball killed another person.

The crew noted that after the incident, there was a disgusting smell of sulfur above the deck.

Contemporary evidence

• During World War II, pilots reported strange phenomena that could be interpreted as ball lightning. They saw small balls moving along an unusual trajectory.
• On August 6, 1944, in the Swedish city of Uppsala, ball lightning passed through a closed window, leaving behind a round hole about 5 cm in diameter. The phenomenon was observed not only by local residents. The fact is that the system for tracking lightning discharges at Uppsala University, which is located in the department for the study of electricity and lightning, has worked.
• In 2008, ball lightning flew through the window of a trolleybus in Kazan. The conductor, with the help of a validator, threw her to the end of the cabin, where there were no passengers. A few seconds later there was an explosion. There were 20 people in the cabin, but no one was hurt. The trolleybus was out of order, the validator got hot and turned white, but remained in working order.

Since ancient times, ball lightning has been observed by thousands of people in different parts of the world. Most modern physicists do not doubt the fact that ball lightning really exists.

However, there is still no single academic opinion about what ball lightning is and what causes this natural phenomenon.

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