Where do fireballs come from and are they dangerous?

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Mikhail Lomonosov tried to unravel this secret.

What is ball lightning

This is an extremely rare natural phenomenon in the form of a flying luminous sphere, which is usually associated with atmospheric electricity. The real nature of ball lightning is unknown. Most often they appear in a thunderstorm, but sometimes they are seen in calm weather, both outdoors and indoors.

The diameter of the glowing balls can be from 4–5 centimeters to several meters, although usually these lightning bolts are not larger than a basketball. The color is different: red, orange and yellow, blue, green or white. Often, the appearance of such an object is accompanied by a hissing sound and a pungent smell of sulfur.

According to eyewitnesses, ball lightning is capable of moving regardless of the strength and direction of the wind, can burn through a window or even a wall and kill a person. True, most often they do no harm: they just appear for a few seconds and disappear silently or with an explosion.

One of the first mentions of ball lightning dates back to 1638. Then eyewitnesses reported that a large fireball almost destroyed one of the English churches, breaking through the wall. Since then, a lot of evidence has accumulated. So, Mikhail Lomonosov examined the body of Academician Georg Richman, who died from ball lightning.

However, despite the weighty amount of evidence, scientists have not yet been able to understand where ball lightning comes from and what they are.

How science explains the origin of ball lightning

We are well aware of how ordinary lightning occurs. This is due to the collision of different electrical charges in the atmosphere. When they meet, a powerful discharge arises.

But with ball lightning there is no such certainty. Both distinguished scientists and marginals from science like pseudo-synergetics offer their theories: there are more than 400 hypotheses in total. So, one of the extravagant explanations says that ball lightning is a product of other worlds. Let's analyze more realistic options.

Plasma

According to one version, ball lightning is born at the moment an ordinary lightning strikes the ground. As a result, some of the soil elements evaporate with high temperatures. Together with ionized oxygen, they form a mixture that begins to give off heat and turns into a plasma bubble.

According to another similar theory, after lightning strikes the ground, microwave radiation appears. It, in turn, heats up the air, which forms a plasma. Scientists even managed to generate fire objects in this way experimentally.

Also, electrical discharges can lead to the appearance of glowing balls if the atmosphere contains gases such as propane, ethane or methane.

Air ions on glass

Climatologists from the United States and Australia believe that fireballs can cause atmospheric ions to accumulate on the inner surface of glass. They create an electric field sufficient for the discharge to occur.

Interaction of electromagnetic waves with the atmosphere

The famous Soviet physicist, Nobel Prize winner, Pyotr Kapitsa suggested that ball lightning is provoked by waves of electromagnetic radiation that arise between clouds and the earth. The amplitude of these oscillations can form a clot of air charged with a current - "breakdown", or a gas discharge.

Hallucinations

According to a study by Austrian physicists, electromagnetic fields appearing in a thunderstorm can affect the human body. For example, on the visual cortex of the brain. Then a person can observe luminous and moving discs and lines. With this stimulation, the participants in the experiment saw white, gray, or unsaturated flashes of color. Researchers believe that up to half of all observations of ball lightning are electromagnetic hallucinations.

Tectonic effects

It is known that rare flashes of electricity, similar to ball lightning, can occur in C. nunez. Earthquake lights, explained / National Geographic during earthquakes.

Why the nature of ball lightning is still unexplained

Despite the abundance of hypotheses, it has not yet been possible to get closer to solving the mystery of ball lightning. These phenomena are too rare and short-lived, so a unified theory has not appeared, and practically all hypotheses have problems.

For example, ball lightning does not always appear in places where propane, ethane or methane accumulate; experiments with microwave radiation are far from real life. And the glass theory does not explain how fireballs appear outdoors.

In the case of hallucinations, everything is not so smooth either. After all, eyewitnesses report not only about white or gray ball lightning, but also about spheres of different colors. In addition, some observers saw lightning very closely and could describe their internal structure and associated smells and sounds. All this bears little resemblance to simple distant flashes and does not explain why several people could see the balls flying in the same direction.

In 2012, Chinese scientists for the first time managed to capture ball lightning, which covered a path of about 10 meters, on a spectrometer. The device showed that the sphere contains silicon, iron and calcium - elements from the local soil. Traces of the same substances were found in fragments allegedly left by ball lightning.

This supports the theory of the plasma nature of the phenomenon, but there is still very little data for unambiguous conclusions. For example, it is not clear how, in this case, ball lightning can appear indoors.

How not to suffer from ball lightning

Today we have too little information to give any specific advice. By and large, one can rely only on the observations of eyewitnesses, and this is very unreliable data. For example, some people recommend avoiding metal objects, as they supposedly attract fireballs.

Only two things can be reliably advised: try to stay away from ball lightning and not panic. Most often, this phenomenon does not cause any damage, therefore, if you notice a glowing ball, it is better not to do anything. And it never hurts to stay home in a thunderstorm. After all, ordinary lightning is no less, and perhaps more dangerous.