Ball lightning consequences. How ball lightning appears - interesting and amazing facts. Ball lightning color

Ball lightning

Ball lightning- a luminous ball floating in the air, a uniquely rare natural phenomenon, a unified physical theory of the occurrence and flow of which has not been presented to date. There are about 400 theories explaining the phenomenon, but none of them has received absolute recognition in the academic environment. Under laboratory conditions, similar, but short-term phenomena have been obtained in several different ways, but the question of the unique nature of ball lightning remains open. As of the end of the 20th century, not a single experimental stand was created on which this natural phenomenon would be artificially reproduced in accordance with the descriptions of eyewitnesses of ball lightning.

It is widely believed that ball lightning is a phenomenon of electrical origin, of natural nature, that is, it is a special type of lightning that exists for a long time and has the shape of a ball that can move along an unpredictable, sometimes surprising trajectory for eyewitnesses.

Traditionally, the reliability of many ball lightning eyewitness accounts remains in doubt, including:

by the very fact of observing at least some phenomenon;
the fact of observing ball lightning, and not some other phenomenon;
individual details given in the eyewitness account of the phenomenon.

Doubts about the reliability of many testimonies complicate the study of the phenomenon, and also create grounds for the emergence of various speculative sensational materials allegedly related to this phenomenon.

Ball lightning usually appears in thunderstorm, stormy weather; often, but not necessarily, along with regular lightning. But there is a lot of evidence of its observation in sunny weather. Most often, it seems to “leave” the conductor or is generated by ordinary lightning, sometimes descends from the clouds, in rare cases it suddenly appears in the air or, as eyewitnesses report, it can come out of some object (tree, pillar).

Due to the fact that the appearance of ball lightning as natural phenomenon occurs rarely, and attempts to artificially reproduce it on the scale of a natural phenomenon fail, the main material for the study of ball lightning is the evidence of casual eyewitnesses unprepared for observations, nevertheless, some evidence describes ball lightning in great detail and the reliability of these materials is beyond doubt. In some cases, contemporary eyewitnesses have photographed and/or filmed the phenomenon.

Observation history

Stories about observations of ball lightning have been known for two thousand years. In the first half of the 19th century, the French physicist, astronomer and naturalist F. Arago, perhaps the first in the history of civilization, collected and systematized all evidence of the appearance of ball lightning known at that time. In his book, 30 cases of observation of ball lightning were described. The statistics are small, and it is not surprising that many physicists of the 19th century, including Kelvin and Faraday, were inclined during their lifetime to believe that this was 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 scientists, including prominent physicists.

In the late 1940s P. L. Kapitsa worked on the explanation of ball lightning.

Huge contribution the work on the observation and description of ball lightning was introduced by the Soviet scientist I.P. Stakhanov, who, together with S.L. Lopatnikov, in the journal Knowledge is Power in the 1970s. published an article on ball lightning. At the end of this article, he attached a questionnaire and asked eyewitnesses to send him their detailed recollections of this phenomenon. As a result, he accumulated extensive statistics - more than a thousand cases, which allowed him to generalize some of the properties of ball lightning and offer his theoretical model of ball lightning.

Historical evidence

Thunderstorm at Widecombe Moor
On October 21, 1638, lightning appeared during a thunderstorm in the church of the village of Wydecombe Moor, Devon, England. Eyewitnesses said that a huge fireball about two and a half meters across flew into the church. He knocked out several large stones and wooden beams from the walls of the church. Then the ball allegedly broke the benches, broke many windows and filled the room with thick dark smoke with the smell of sulfur. Then it split in half; the first ball flew out, breaking another window, the second disappeared somewhere inside the church. As a result, 4 people died and 60 were injured. The phenomenon was explained by the "coming of the devil", or "hell fire" and blamed for everything on two people who dared to play cards during the sermon.

Incident aboard the Catherine & Marie
In December 1726, some British newspapers printed an extract from a letter from a certain John Howell, who was on board the sloop "Catherine and Mary". “On August 29, we were walking along the bay off the coast of Florida, when suddenly a ball flew out of a part of the ship. He smashed our mast into 10,000 pieces, if that were even possible, and blew the beam to pieces. Also, the ball pulled out three boards from the side skin, from the underwater one and three from the deck; killed one man, injured the hand of another, and if it were not for the heavy rains, then our sails would have been simply destroyed by fire.

Incident aboard the Montag
The impressive size of the lightning is reported from the words of the ship's doctor Gregory in 1749. Admiral Chambers, aboard the Montag, went up on deck around noon to measure the ship's coordinates. He spotted a fairly large blue fireball about three miles away. The order was immediately given to lower the topsails, but the ball was moving very fast, and before it could change course, it flew up almost vertically and, being no more than forty or fifty yards above the rig, disappeared with a powerful explosion, which is described as a simultaneous volley of a thousand guns. The top of the mainmast was destroyed. Five people were knocked down, one of them received multiple bruises. The ball left behind a strong smell of sulfur; before the explosion, its value reached the size of a millstone.

Death of Georg Richmann
In 1753, Georg Richmann, a full member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, died from a ball lightning strike. He invented a device for studying atmospheric electricity, so when next meeting heard that a thunderstorm was coming, urgently went home with the 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 fell dead, and the engraver was stunned and knocked down. He later described what happened. A small dark crimson speck remained on the scientist's forehead, his clothes were scorched, his shoes were torn. The doorposts shattered into splinters, and the door itself was blown off its hinges. Later, M. V. Lomonosov personally inspected the scene.

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.

Remarque in the literature of 1864
In the 1864 edition of A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, Ebenezer Cobham Brewer discusses "ball lightning". In his description, lightning appears as a slowly moving fireball of explosive gas, which sometimes descends to the earth and moves along its surface. It is also noted that the balls can split into smaller balls and explode "like a cannon shot."

Description in the book Lightning and Glow by Wilfried de Fontvieille
A French author's book reports about 150 ball lightning encounters: “Apparently, ball lightning is strongly attracted to metal objects, so they often end up near balcony railings, water and gas pipes. They do not have a specific color, their shade may be different, for example, in Köthen in the Duchy of Anhalt, lightning was green. M. Colon, Vice-President of the Geological Society of Paris, saw the ball slowly descend along the bark of a tree. Touching the surface of the ground, he jumped and disappeared without an explosion. On September 10, 1845, in the Correze Valley, lightning flew into the kitchen of one of the houses in the village of Salagnac. The ball rolled through the entire room without causing any damage to the people there. When he reached the barn bordering the kitchen, he suddenly exploded and killed a pig accidentally locked there. The animal was not familiar with the wonders of thunder and lightning, so it dared to smell in the most obscene and inappropriate way. Lightning does not move very fast: some have even seen them stop, but this does not make the balls less destructive. Lightning that flew into the church of the city of Stralsund, during the explosion, threw out several small balls, which also exploded like artillery shells.

Case from the life of Nicholas II
The last Russian Emperor Nicholas II, in the presence of his grandfather Alexander II, observed a phenomenon that he called a "ball of fire". He recalled: “When my parents were away, my grandfather and I performed the rite of the all-night vigil in the Alexandria Church. There was a strong thunderstorm; it seemed that lightning, following one after another, was ready to shake the church and the whole world right to the ground. It suddenly became completely dark when a gust of wind opened the gates of the church and put out the candles in front of the iconostasis. There was more thunder than usual, and I saw a fireball fly through the window. The ball (it was lightning) circled on the floor, flew past the candelabra and flew out through the door into the park. My heart sank with fear and I looked at my grandfather - but his face was completely calm. He crossed himself with the same calmness as when lightning flew past us. Then I thought that to be frightened like me is inappropriate and unmanly ... After the ball flew out, I again looked at my grandfather. He smiled slightly and nodded at me. My fear disappeared and I was never afraid of a thunderstorm again.

A story from the life of Aleister Crowley
The famous British occultist Aleister Crowley spoke of what he called "ball-shaped electricity" and which he observed in 1916 during a thunderstorm on Pasconee Lake in New Hampshire. He took refuge in a small country house when “I noticed in silent astonishment that at a distance of six inches from my right knee a dazzling ball of electric fire three to six inches in diameter had stopped. I looked at him, and he suddenly exploded with a sharp sound that could not be confused with what was rampant outside: the noise of a thunderstorm, the sound of hail, or streams of water and crackling wood. My hand was closest to the ball and it only felt a slight impact."

Other evidence

During World War II, submariners repeatedly and consistently reported small fireballs occurring in the confined space of a submarine. They appeared when the battery was turned on, turned off, or incorrectly turned on, or in the event of a disconnection or incorrect connection of highly inductive electric motors. Attempts to reproduce the phenomenon using the submarine's spare battery ended in failure and explosion.

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 not only observed by local residents, but also the lightning tracking system of Uppsala University, which is located in the department for the study of electricity and lightning, also worked.

In 1954, the physicist Domokos Tar observed lightning in a severe thunderstorm. He described what he saw in sufficient detail. “It happened on Margaret Island on the Danube. It was somewhere between 25-27 degrees Celsius, the sky quickly covered with clouds and a strong thunderstorm began. Nearby there was nothing to hide, only a lone bush nearby, which was bent by the wind to the ground. Suddenly, about 50 meters away from me, lightning struck the ground. It was a very bright channel 25-30 cm in diameter, it was exactly perpendicular to the surface of the earth. It was dark for about two seconds, and then a beautiful ball with a diameter of 30-40 cm appeared at a height of 1.2 m. bush. The ball sparkled like a small sun and rotated counterclockwise. The axis of rotation was parallel to the ground and perpendicular to the bush-hit-ball line. The ball also had one or two red curls, but not so bright, they disappeared after a fraction of a second (~0.3 s). The ball itself slowly moved horizontally along the same line from the bush. Its colors were clear, and the brightness itself was constant over the entire surface. There was no more rotation, the movement took place at a constant height and at a constant speed. I didn't notice any size changes. About three more seconds passed - the ball disappeared abruptly, and completely silently, although due to the noise of the thunderstorm I could not hear it. The author himself suggests that the temperature difference inside and outside the channel of ordinary lightning with the help of a gust of wind formed a kind of vortex ring, from which the observed ball lightning was then formed.

On July 10, 2011, in the Czech city of Liberec, ball lightning appeared in the control building of the city's emergency services. A ball with a two-meter tail jumped to the ceiling directly from the window, fell to the floor, bounced again to the ceiling, flew 2-3 meters, and then fell to the floor and disappeared. This frightened the employees, who smelled burnt wiring and believed that a fire had started. All computers hung (but did not break), communication equipment was out of order for the night until it was repaired. In addition, one monitor was destroyed.

On August 4, 2012, ball lightning frightened a villager in the Pruzhany district of the Brest region. According to the newspaper "Rayonnyya Budni", ball lightning flew into the house during a thunderstorm. Moreover, as the hostess of the house, Nadezhda Vladimirovna Ostapuk, told the publication, the windows and doors in the house were closed and the woman could not understand how the fireball entered the room. Luckily, the woman figured out that she shouldn't make any sudden movements, and just stayed where she was, watching the lightning. Ball lightning flew over her head and discharged into the electrical wiring on the wall. As a result of an unusual natural phenomenon, no one was injured, only the interior decoration of the room was damaged, the newspaper reports.

Artificial reproduction of the phenomenon

Review of approaches for artificial reproduction of ball lightning

Since there is a clear connection in the appearance of ball lightning with other manifestations of atmospheric electricity (for example, ordinary lightning), most of the experiments were carried out according to the following scheme: a gas discharge was created (and the glow of a gas discharge is a well-known thing), and then conditions were sought when the luminous discharge could would exist in the form of a spherical body. But researchers have only short-term gas discharges of a spherical shape, living for a maximum of a few seconds, which does not correspond to eyewitness accounts of natural ball lightning.

List of artificially reproduced ball lightning claims

Several claims have been made about the production of ball lightning in laboratories, but in general there has been a skeptical attitude towards these statements in the academic environment. The question remains open: "Are the phenomena observed in laboratory conditions identical to the natural phenomenon of ball lightning"?

The first detailed studies of a glowing electrodeless discharge were carried out only in 1942 by the Soviet electrical engineer Babat: he managed to obtain a spherical gas discharge inside a low pressure chamber for a few seconds.

Kapitsa was able to obtain a spherical gas discharge at atmospheric pressure in a helium environment. Additives of various organic compounds changed the brightness and color of the glow.

Theoretical explanations of the phenomenon

In our age, when physicists know what happened in the first seconds of the existence of the Universe, and what is happening in black holes that have not yet been discovered, we still have to admit with surprise that the main elements of antiquity - air and water - still remain a mystery to us.

I.P. Stakhanov

Most theories agree that the reason for the formation of any ball lightning is associated with the passage of gases through a region with a large difference in electrical potentials, which causes the ionization of these gases and their compression into a ball.

Experimental verification existing theories difficult. Even if we count only the assumptions published in serious scientific journals, then the number of theoretical models that describe the phenomenon and answer these questions with varying degrees of success is quite large.

Classification of theories

On the basis of the place of the energy source that supports the existence of ball lightning, theories can be divided into two classes: those suggesting an external source, and theories that consider that the source is inside the ball lightning.

Review of existing theories

The following theory assumes that ball lightning is heavy positive and negative air ions formed during an ordinary lightning strike, the recombination of which is prevented by their hydrolysis. Under the influence electrical forces they gather into a ball and can coexist for quite a long time until their water coat collapses. This also explains the fact that the different color of ball lightning and its direct dependence on the time of existence of the ball lightning itself - the rate of destruction of water "fur coats" and the beginning of the process of avalanche recombination.

Literature

Books and reports on ball lightning

Stakhanov I.P. On the physical nature of ball lightning. - Moscow: (Atomizdat, Energoatomizdat, Scientific World), (1979, 1985, 1996). - 240 s.
S. Singer The nature of ball lightning. Per. from English. M.: Mir, 1973, 239 p.
Imyanitov I. M., Tikhiy D. Ya. Beyond the laws of science. Moscow: Atomizdat, 1980
Grigoriev A. I. Ball lightning. Yaroslavl: YarSU, 2006. 200 p.
Lisitsa M. P., Valakh M. Ya. Interesting optics. Atmospheric and space optics. Kyiv: Logos, 2002, 256 p.
Brand W. Der Kugelblitz. Hamburg, Henri Grand, 1923
Stakhanov I.P. On the physical nature of ball lightning M.: Energoatomizdat, 1985, 208 p.
Kunin V. N. Ball lightning at the experimental site. Vladimir: Vladimir State University, 2000, 84 p.

Articles in magazines

Torchigin V. P., Torchigin A. V. Ball lightning as a concentrate of light. Chemistry and Life, 2003, No. 1, 47-49.
Barry J. Ball lightning. Bead lightning. Per. from English. M.: Mir, 1983, 228 p.
Shabanov G.D., Sokolovsky B.Yu.// Plasma Physics Reports. 2005. V31. No. 6. P512.
Shabanov G.D.// Technical Physics Letters. 2002. V28. No. 2. P164.

Ball lightning in fiction

Russell, Eric Frank"Sinister barrier" 1939

Notes

I. Stakhanov "Physicist who knew more about ball lightning"
Such a Russian variant of the name is listed in the list of UK telephone codes. There are also variants of Widecomb-in-the-Moor and direct dubbing of the original English Widecomb-in-the-Moor - Widecomb-in-the-Moor
Conductor from Kazan saved passengers from ball lightning
Ball lightning scared a villager in the Brest region [email protected]
K. L. Corum, J. F. Corum “Experiments on the creation of ball lightning using a high-frequency discharge and electrochemical fractal clusters”//UFN, 1990, v.160, issue 4.
A. I. Egorova, S. I. Stepanova and G. D. Shabanova, Demonstration of ball lightning in the laboratory, UFN, vol. 174, issue 1, pp. 107-109, (2004)
P. L. Kapitsa On the nature of ball lightning DAN USSR 1955. Volume 101, No. 2, pp. 245-248.
B.M. Smirnov, Physics Reports, 224 (1993) 151, Smirnov B.M. Physics of ball lightning // UFN, 1990, v.160. issue 4. p.1-45
D. J. Turner, Physics Reports 293 (1998) 1
E.A. Manykin, M.I. Ozhovan, P.P. Poluektov. Condensed Rydberg matter. Nature, No. 1 (1025), 22-30 (2001). http://www.fidel-kastro.ru/nature/vivovoco.nns.ru/VV/JOURNAL/NATURE/01_01/RIDBERG.HTM
A. I. Klimov, D. M. Melnichenko, N. N. Sukovatkin “LONG-LIVING ENERGY-INTENSIVE EXCITED FORMATIONS AND PLASMOIDS IN LIQUID NITROGEN”
Segev M.G. Phys. Today, 51 (8) (1998), 42
"V. P. Torchigin, 2003. On the nature of ball lightning. DAN, vol. 389, no. 3, pp. 41-44.

Ball lightning - the unsolved mystery of nature

The village where several generations of my ancestors lived is called Berezovka and is located 150 kilometers from the metropolis. Today there is no one left, and we rarely get out there. The garden is overgrown, the house, once strong, leaned over. The house is quite small: a closet, a kitchen and a hall, as the locals call it. In the summer of 2005, I was lying in the hall on an old bed with a bent net. My wife was in the kitchen preparing a salad, and I enjoyed the sound of rain and the sound of thunder. The door to the closet was open, the window in the hall too, and after another roll of thunder from the kitchen, lightning flashed through the hall and flew out the window. It was exactly the same as they draw in the pictures: blue, broken in several places. It happened quickly, I did not even have time to open my mouth in surprise. But after her, ball lightning immediately flew into the room. She stopped right in the middle of the room. I watched her with all my eyes, not a bit scared, it was so unusual. Lightning looked like a red soap bubble, only filled inside with some kind of quivering substance. I saw her for about two seconds, after which the fireball, without saying goodbye, flew out the window after the first guest. It seemed to me that the second pursued the first. Fear came later. So I became one of the few who managed to encounter an unusual and mysterious phenomenon - ball lightning!

Quite a bit of history

Where, who and when first saw and recorded ball lightning on paper or drawing is unknown. The pioneers of the heavenly miracle are many people, scientists and countries.

The majestic phenomenon of nature - ball lightning

There were written references to the mysterious luminous balls in the Roman annals of 106 BC. There, fireballs were compared to fiery birds that carried red-hot coals in their beaks.

Many descriptions of celestial miraculous balls in medieval European sources(Portuguese, French, English).

A documented case occurred in England in Devon in 1638, when a fiery hooligan wounded 60 people, killed four and did other misfortunes.

The Frenchman F. Arago described thirty cases of the appearance of ball lightning and eyewitness observations of them.

eyewitness accounts

“A bright ball stretched out from the socket. He separated from her and, like a soap bubble, floated around the room, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow. It froze for a short time over the desk and sucked back into the socket, but already another one. At that moment, I was sure that I was hallucinating.”

But in general, science somehow showed little interest in this unusual celestial phenomenon until the middle of the twentieth century, when it was taken seriously.

The fact is that at that time work in the field was intensified, and many famous scientists, for example, Pyotr Kapitsa, had a hand in the study of ball lightning.

One of the forms of matter is plasma

Today, interest in ball lightning is among scientists is great. Conferences, seminars, symposiums are held on this topic, candidate and doctoral dissertations are defended.

Unfortunately, despite the huge amount of information, descriptions and observations, ball lightning continues to be a mystery and leads among the mysterious, incomprehensible and dangerous natural phenomena.

What kind of natural phenomenon is ball lightning? Hypotheses

Believe it or not, there are almost half a thousand hypotheses and theories about the nature of ball lightning. In a short note it is not possible to state even a small part of them, we will limit ourselves to the most popular and exotic ones.

The first hypothesis that has come down to us about the origin of the fiery miracle was put forward by Peter van Muschenbrook. He suggested that fireballs are swamp gases condensed in the upper atmosphere. They ignite as they go down.

The Russian scientist Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa believed that ball lightning is a discharge that occurs without electrodes, which is caused by microwaves of unknown origin that exist between clouds and the earth.
There is a theory that fireballs consist of balls of burning silicon that are formed when lightning strikes the ground.
Many famous physicists In the 19th century, for example, Faraday or Kelvin considered lightning to be an optical illusion.
According to Turner's theory, it appears due to thermochemical reactions that occur in water vapor in a strong electric field.
It is believed that ball lightning is microscopic nuclear explosions or miniature black holes.
Some researchers consider them alive and endow lightning with intelligence.
Others call the guests from heaven instruments created by an unknown mind to explore our world.

A group of ufologists agree that the fiery ladies are aliens from parallel world where life proceeds according to different physical laws. Having collected information, they dive into their own world, and, dropping it, reappear in ours, but in a different place. During thunderstorms, there is a surge of energy, and then portals to other worlds open.

Ball lightning shape

Based on the name "Ball", we can confidently say that the main form is a ball, a fireball (fireball).

In fact, the electric lady loves, like a real lady, often to change clothes and the form can take the most strange and unusual. Ball lightning has been seen in the form of a bright ribbon, a drop, a mushroom, a jellyfish, a long elongated egg, a pancake, a rugby ball. It is not known what her real appearance is, most likely it does not exist.

eyewitness accounts

“A bright red ball with a diameter of twenty centimeters slowly floated out of the hallway. Then he quickly took the form of a long whip and, quite silently, slipped out of the room through the keyhole. There were no marks left on the door.

Ball lightning color

A guest from heaven is a real fashionista, she can change her color instantly, without resorting to long and tiring make-up. In her cosmetic bag the whole range of colors.

Fireballs come in all colors from black to white. It makes no sense to list them, there is literally the whole gamut. Most often, lightning dresses up, orange, white and green. The tail paints according to mood. It also changes the color of its translucent shell.

Black ball lightning

A matte black sky wanderer regularly appears from the ground in Black Glade. This is a place in a small town near Pskov. It began to be observed in these places long ago, after the fall of the Tunguska meteorite in 1908. She appeared in the same place, which later led scientists to the idea of fixing her appearance and measuring the temperature with the help of instruments. Alas, the efforts were in vain, over and over again, the researchers found devices in a molten state.

Ball lightning temperature

It is unlikely that someone will tell you the exact temperature of the plasma beauty. Most often, the temperature scale jumps from 100 to 1000 degrees. At a thousand (slightly higher), steel is already melting. Some scientists claim that the temperature of ball lightning reaches three million degrees. The number is incredible!

Only one thing can be stated with certainty - there is no cold ball lightning, and negative temperatures are not mentioned anywhere. But explosions in contact with any objects are often remembered. There are also numerous cases of fires and ignitions of objects that are out of place in the path of the fireball.

Ball lightning lifetime

In the laboratory, scientists have several times received ball lightning or its likeness. She lived for a few seconds. It is very difficult to determine the time of its existence in nature, because no one observed ball lightning from the moment of its birth to death. In addition, it is unlikely that anyone, faced with this phenomenon, will note the time by the clock, so the sensations of the observers are subjective.

However, comparing the facts and the memories of eyewitnesses, scientists came to the conclusion that the life of most ball lightning is short-lived: from 7 to 40 seconds. Although there are references to hours and even days of observation of this fiery object. We don't know how reliable they are.

eyewitness accounts

“The storm was terrible, after another lightning strike, a huge fireball began to descend from the ceiling into the room. I, beside myself, jumped out into the closet and slammed the door. Sat there for a long time. When the storm ended, she cautiously opened the door. It smelled of burning, the old clock hanging on the wall turned into a melted shapeless lump. Everything else was in order."

Death of ball lightning

Often, a fiery witch furnishes her demise with pomp. Her death is accompanied by explosions when colliding with objects or buildings, which leads to severe fires. There are references when animals, people, and even water from lakes and swamps evaporate into the air during an explosion. And it happens that ball lightning explodes in enclosed spaces, apartments, but without causing harm to either the environment or people! Sometimes it just evaporates, disappears quietly and imperceptibly.

Secrets of ball lightning

The fiery lady appears most often during a thunderstorm, but sometimes she goes out for a walk in sunny weather.

She does not tolerate satellites, therefore. She can swim out from behind a tree or a pole, descend from a cloud, or suddenly appear from around a corner. There are no walls or barriers for her. Ball lightning easily penetrates into enclosed spaces, sometimes crawling out of sockets. There is a known case when she flew into the cockpit.

The behavior of ball lightning is completely unpredictable. Flight speed, trajectory does not correspond to any calculations. Sometimes, it seems that lightning is endowed with reason and instincts. It can fly around the trees, houses, lampposts that appear in front of it, or it can, as if blinded, crash into them.

Uninvited guests often fly into houses through chimneys, open windows and vents. In several cases, ball lightning, trying to enter the apartment, melted the glass, leaving behind a perfect round hole.

Eyewitnesses said that after the explosion, the smell of sulfur remained in the air for a long time, as if the fiery guest was a messenger from hell.

It is not clear what influences the lightning flight path. These are not people and not animals, since she can fly around them, she can swim against him.

The speed can instantly change from a few centimeters to hundreds of meters per second.

eyewitness accounts

“I watched the storm from the window of my apartment from the first floor. Suddenly, a red ball bounced along the asphalt path. I thought the kids forgot about it. But suddenly he collided with a bench and exploded with a loud noise. I was blind for a few minutes. The bench caught fire."

If we are talking about the thermal properties of ball lightning, then everything here is generally incomprehensible. Sometimes, under heavy pouring rain, she can burn down a huge wet oak, and sometimes, waking up to a person, she leaves no traces on him.

But this is not always the case, more often a meeting with a fiery monster threatens a person with injury, burns and death. We will talk further about how to avoid this.

VIDEO: 10 facts about ball lightning

How to behave

If, God forbid, during a thunderstorm you met with ball lightning in an open area! Adhere to the following rules of conduct in this extreme situation.

Leave slowly and without sudden movements.
Never attempt to run or turn your back on the fireball.
If you notice that ball lightning is heading towards you, freeze, hold your breath, try not to move. Most likely, after a few seconds, she will lose interest in you and leave.
Do not try to throw any objects at it, if they collide with them, an explosion may occur.

Ball lightning: how to escape if it appeared in the house?

For an unprepared person, the appearance of ball lightning in an apartment will be a shock, no one is prepared for this. However, try not to panic, because panic can lead to a fatal error, because lightning reacts to air movement. Therefore, the most universal advice is to stand still, do not move, breathe less often.

What to do if ball lightning is near your face? Lightly blow on it, it is likely that the ball will fly off to the side.
Do not touch metal objects.
Do not try to run, do not make sudden movements, freeze.
If there is an entrance to another room nearby, try to slowly make your way there.
Move smoothly and slowly, and most importantly, do not turn your back on the fireball.
Do not try to drive it away from you with your hands or objects, you risk provoking lightning to explode.
In this case, serious trouble awaits you. Burns, trauma, loss of consciousness, cardiac spasms are possible.

How to help the victim

An electric shock from a ball lightning discharge can lead to very serious consequences. If you encounter such a situation and see that a person is injured, urgently transfer him to another place. The charge in his body is gone, so don't be afraid. Lay on the floor and call an ambulance. If it occurs, give the victim artificial respiration. If the injuries are not severe and the person is conscious, before calling an ambulance, give him a couple of analgin tablets, put a wet towel on his head and drip soothing drops.

How to save yourself

During a thunderstorm, people often behave carelessly, unaware of the real danger that threatens them. Most people get struck by lightning in nature.
How to protect yourself from a fireball in the forest? Don't stand under a lonely tree. It is better to hide in the undergrowth or a low grove. Lightning rarely strikes birches and conifers.
Get rid of metal objects. Throw a gun, umbrella, fishing rod, shovel, etc. away from you. Then pick.
Don't lie down on the ground, don't bury yourself in a haystack, just squat down to wait out the storm.
If you are in a car during a thunderstorm, stop, turn off the engine, and do not touch metal objects. Before that, drive away from tall trees to the side of the road and lower the antenna.
How to behave in the house and should you worry if you are under a safe, as it seems to you, roof? Alas, a lightning rod will not help you in case of ball lightning.
An even more dangerous situation is if a thunderstorm caught you in the steppe. Squat down, do not tower over the landscape. You can hide in a ditch if there is one nearby, but if the ditch fills with water, leave immediately.
If you are on the water, in a boat, don't get up. Row slowly, smoothly towards the shore. When you land, move away from the water.
Remove all metal jewelry from yourself, turn off your mobile phone. His call can attract a fireball.
If you are in a country house, close the chimney and windows. Although glass is not always a barrier to ball lightning. It can seep through it, as well as through sockets.
If there is a thunderstorm outside the windows, and you are in the apartment, do not take risks, turn off electrical appliances, do not touch metal objects. Disconnect all external antennas and do not make phone calls.

VIDEO: Where can you see ball lightning?

The story of student Sergei Ogorodnikov

Ball lightning and light bulbs are maternal relatives

A funny story was told by Sergei Ogorodnikov.

On Saturday morning my father called me. His voice was excited. The parent now and then interrupted for pauses, although he spoke slowly, in a whisper and uttered the words, as if fearing something. The day before, she and her mother went to the garden for the weekend, brought seedlings, some jars, old clothes, in short, the usual sadistic deeds.

Seryozha, urgently call the fire brigade to us and call the television, let them also come immediately.

His excitement was immediately transferred to me. My father is a reasonable man, calm, does not drink, and it did not occur to me to suspect him of a prank, fear was too clearly read in his voice.

Dad, what happened, - I was confused, - you yourself can call everyone.

I have only one call, the second is not in stock, otherwise she will notice us.

Who will notice? “I still didn't understand anything.

Lightning! Ball lightning flew into our house. It hangs right above the door, doesn’t move, so we can’t go out, and I won’t be able to call again, and I can’t speak loudly, it monitors air vibrations.

Where is mom? “I was already scared.

Lying on the couch, sleeping, I forbade her to move, so she fell asleep.

While the firefighters are coming to you, lightning can mess things up, try to get out the window.

It won’t work, two more of the same are waiting for us outside the window.

Two lightning?!

Ball?

What else? Of course spherical. They probably found out that I broke the light bulb the day before yesterday.

What light bulb?

Normal - 100 watts.

What's with the light bulb?

Don't you know what they are?

Lightning and light bulbs.

It was already nonsense. I could still believe in ball lightning, but about the other two outside the window and about the fact that light bulbs and lightning are relatives! And why is mom calmly on the couch? Something was wrong. I tried to give my voice confidence and said, "Wait, help will arrive soon."

Thank God, my car was not in the garage, but under the window, which probably saved their lives. I drove like crazy, without fear, fortunately, no one slowed me down, and the road was surprisingly free. We have a site near the city, so I arrived quickly. There were no lightning in front of the house. And yet I cautiously opened the door, it (another lucky coincidence) was not locked.

Mother was actually lying on the sofa, her face was gray. My father lay on the floor next to me, looking no better. The air in the room was heavy and thick, it seemed that you could touch it with your hands. For some reason, I think that it is carbon monoxide, although I have never burned myself in my life.

Heating in our house is stove, wood. He immediately opened the door and secured it with a stool. One by one, he dragged his parents out into the fresh air. Immediately called an ambulance, explained that two people were dying from carbon monoxide. While the doctors were driving, I soaked two towels and put them on their heads. I didn't know what to do next.

Fortunately, the car arrived quickly, my parents were loaded onto a stretcher, and I went with them. Thanks to the doctors, everything ended well. Now we remember this case. But my parent does not remember about the bell, lightning and light bulbs.

We wondered for a long time why such a fantasy came to the mind of a man who was one step away from death. Then my father remembered that, shortly before going to the garden, he had looked documentary about ball lightning, which made a strong impression on him. I think that if it was a film about the phenomenon of time, wormholes and black holes, then it would not be fireballs attacking his befuddled head, but from a parallel universe.

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, the Russian physicist Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa believed that ball lightning is a discharge that occurs without electrodes, which is caused by microwave waves 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, minerals break 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 did not give details of his experience, so it was difficult to reproduce this setup.

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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Where does ball lightning come from and what is it? Scientists have been asking themselves this question for many decades in a row, and so far there is no clear answer. A stable plasma ball resulting from a powerful high-frequency discharge. Another hypothesis is antimatter micrometeorites.

…A barrier with a spherical surface can appear between matter and antimatter. Powerful gamma radiation will inflate this ball from the inside, and prevent the penetration of matter to the alien antimatter, and then we will see a glowing pulsating ball that will soar above the Earth. This view appears to have been confirmed. Two British scientists methodically inspected the sky with gamma-ray detectors. And registered four times abnormally high level gamma radiation in the expected energy region.

How ball lightning is formed

How many antimatter meteorites are needed to provide the frequency with which fireballs are observed? It turned out that only one hundred billionth of the total amount of meteorite material falling on Earth is enough for this. This is the result of this unexpected work. Of course, the explanation of scientists is far from final and requires verification. But does it have anything to do with ball lightning?

No! - answers another scientist and declares that ball lightning does not exist at all. That luminous ball that we see is just an illusion of our vision. In his laboratory, with flash lamps, he imitated lightning flashes with the same frequency with which they usually follow during a thunderstorm, and everyone present was surprised to “saw” how strange luminous balls smoothly fly through the air ...

There are many hypotheses, but they have one in common, general approach. Ball lightning is considered as a separate, isolated something that lives independently.

At the end of the century before last, the French scientist Gaston Plante and the Russian scientist N. A. Gezehus proposed and developed the fundamental idea that ball lightning is a system that is energetically fed external source. They believed that the luminous ball was connected with clouds - an invisible column of electrified air. But then, in the century before last, they could not develop and substantiate this hypothesis, and it disappeared under a pile of others, in which ball lightning was considered as a separate mysterious object. And now ideas that are ahead of their time come to life on a new basis.

What does ball lightning look like? Like that. This picture must have been taken by accident. Thunderstorm, blinding branches of lightning, stretching to the Earth. And the ball, rapidly flying down. A jerk, an instant stop, the ball rushes about, then again a jerk down to the Earth, again a stop, a chaotic rapid movement to the sides ... Here is the Earth. And a powerful explosion - discharge. It is clearly visible in the photo. A unique photograph, the only one of its kind - the flight of ball lightning to the Earth from a cloud.

But near the Earth, ball lightning may not explode immediately. A small ball quite often likes to travel low at first, along the surface, and here its movement is also restless. Rapid jerks to the sides, a flash, then a smooth, quiet flight, again a flash and throwing ... But the speed of the Earth is much less than when flying from a black sky. Now flashes of ball lightning are almost indistinguishable. During the time between them, the ball barely manages to cover half of its radius. And the flashes merge together, into one flicker with a frequency of 10 to 100 hertz.

Here ball lightning descends to the Earth itself and, without touching it, bounces off something invisible, like an athlete from a trampoline. Having jumped up, the fireball descends again and bounces off the trampoline layer again. So the fireball jumps over the Earth, striking the imagination of everyone who manages to see it. Here, once at the bridges over the river, he moves along them, like a fabulous Kolobok, who ran away from his grandfather and grandmother. Kolobok runs along the walkways and, as if afraid of falling into the water and drowning, moves not straight, but along the curved walkways, following their turns. Gingerbread Man runs, singing his favorite song for some reason in a whisper: “I left my grandfather, I left my grandmother ...”, and in the distance only “shhh” is heard, and eyewitnesses vouch only for the fact that they managed to hear the hissing sound of Kolobok - ball lightning.

Kolobok is modern, he is a radio amateur and not only sings his song, but also broadcasts it on the radio on long waves. Turn on the receiver, and in the range from about a thousand to 10 thousand meters you will hear the same hissing call signs ... "I am Kolobok ..." with the same acoustic frequency of 10-100 hertz, which can be heard directly by the ear.

A strong gust of wind blew our electric Kolobok off the bridges, and it flew across the river and the field and ended up in the courtyard of a wooden house. Seeing a barrel of water, he climbed into it and ... spread over the water. Now he is not Kolobok, but a pancake, but he does not fry, but fries himself, or rather, cooks. The water in the barrel began to heat up and boil. Having completed his work, evaporating all the water. Gingerbread man again shrunk into a ball and flew around the yard, flew through the window into the hut. He flew past an electric light bulb - it flared up brightly and immediately burned out. Spinning around in the room, he flew up to the window and, having melted a small hole in the glass, slipped out and flew into the forest. There he paused for a moment near a large tree. The masquerade is over.

An electric long spark jumps out of ball lightning, which rushes to the nearest electrically conductive surface - the wet bark of a nearby tree. A powerful explosion deafens everything around. A formidable force awakened in Kolobok. Weakly luminous ball lightning turned into a powerful linear lightning that split the trunk of the secular one, and reminded people of the unbridled forces of nature raging during a thunderstorm.

Ball lightning is evidence of our very unimportant knowledge of such a seemingly ordinary and already studied phenomenon as electricity. None of the previously put forward hypotheses has yet explained all its quirks. What is proposed in this article may not even be a hypothesis, but only an attempt to describe the phenomenon in a physical way, without resorting to exotics, such as antimatter. The first and main assumption: ball lightning is a discharge of ordinary lightning that has not reached the Earth. More precisely: ball and linear lightning are one process, but in two different modes - fast and slow.

When switching from a slow mode to a fast one, the process becomes explosive - ball lightning turns into a linear one. The reverse transition of linear lightning into ball lightning is also possible; In some mysterious, or perhaps accidental way, this transition was managed by the talented physicist Richman, a contemporary and friend of Lomonosov. He paid for his luck with his life: the ball lightning he received killed its creator.

Ball lightning and the invisible atmospheric charge path connecting it with the cloud are in a special state of "elma". Elma, unlike plasma - low-temperature electrified air - is stable, cools down and spreads very slowly. This is due to the properties of the boundary layer between the elm and ordinary air. Here the charges exist in the form of negative ions, bulky and inactive. Calculations show that elms spread in as much as 6.5 minutes, and they are replenished regularly every thirtieth of a second. It is through such a time interval that an electromagnetic pulse passes in the discharge path, replenishing Kolobok with energy.

Therefore, the duration of the existence of ball lightning is, in principle, unlimited. The process should stop only when the charge of the cloud is exhausted, more precisely, the “effective charge” that the cloud is able to transfer to the path. This is exactly how the fantastic energy and relative stability of ball lightning can be explained: it exists due to the influx of energy from outside. So phantoms in fantasy novel Lema "Solaris", possessing materiality ordinary people and incredible power, could exist only with the receipt of colossal energy from the living Ocean.

The electric field in ball lightning is close in magnitude to the level of breakdown in a dielectric, whose name is air. In such a field, the optical levels of atoms are excited, which is why ball lightning glows. In theory, weak, non-luminous, and hence invisible ball lightning should be more frequent.

The process in the atmosphere develops in the mode of ball or linear lightning, depending on the specific conditions in the path. There is nothing incredible, rare in this duality. Consider ordinary combustion. It is possible in the regime of slow flame propagation, which does not exclude the regime of a rapidly moving detonation wave.

What is ball lightning made of?

…Lightning descends from the sky. It is not yet clear what it should be, ball or ordinary. It greedily sucks the charge out of the cloud, and the field in the track decreases accordingly. If the field in the path falls below a critical value before it hits the Earth, the process will switch to the ball lightning mode, the path will become invisible, and we will notice that ball lightning descends to the Earth.

In this case, the external field is much smaller than the ball lightning's own field and does not affect its motion. That is why bright lightning moves randomly. Between flashes, ball lightning glows weaker, its charge is small. The motion is now directed by the external field and therefore rectilinear. Ball lightning can be carried by the wind. And it's clear why. After all, the negative ions that it consists of are the same air molecules, only with electrons attached to them.

The rebounding of ball lightning from the near-Earth "trampoline" layer of air is simply explained. When ball lightning approaches the Earth, it induces a charge in the soil, begins to release a lot of energy, heats up, expands and quickly rises under the action of the Archimedean force.

Ball lightning plus the Earth's surface form electrical capacitor. It is known that a capacitor and a dielectric attract each other. Therefore, ball lightning tends to be located above dielectric bodies, which means it prefers to be above wooden bridges, or above a barrel of water. The long-wavelength radio emission associated with ball lightning is generated by the entire path of ball lightning.

The hissing of ball lightning is caused by bursts of electromagnetic activity. These flashes follow with a frequency of about 30 hertz. The hearing threshold of the human ear is 16 hertz.

Ball lightning is surrounded by its own electromagnetic field. Flying past a light bulb, it can inductively heat up and burn out its coil. Once in the wiring of the lighting, radio broadcasting or telephone network, it closes its entire route to this network. Therefore, during a thunderstorm, it is desirable to keep the networks grounded, say, through discharge gaps.

Ball lightning, "flattened" over a barrel of water, together with the charges induced in the ground, constitutes a capacitor with a dielectric. Ordinary water is not an ideal dielectric, it has a significant electrical conductivity. A current begins to flow inside such a capacitor. Water is heated by Joule heat. The "barrel experiment" is well known, when ball lightning heated about 18 liters of water to a boil. According to a theoretical estimate, the average power of ball lightning during its free soaring in the air is approximately 3 kilowatts.

In exceptional cases, for example, under artificial conditions, an electrical breakdown can occur inside ball lightning. And then plasma appears in it! In this case, a lot of energy is released, artificial ball lightning can shine brighter than the sun. But usually the power of ball lightning is relatively small - it is in the Elma state. Apparently, the transition of artificial ball lightning from the Elma state to the plasma state is possible in principle.

Artificial ball lightning

Knowing the nature of the electric Kolobok, you can make it work. Artificial ball lightning can greatly surpass natural in power. By drawing an ionized trace in the atmosphere with a focused laser beam along a given trajectory, we can direct the fireball to the right place. Now let's change the supply voltage, transfer the ball lightning to the linear mode. Giant sparks obediently rush along the trajectory we have chosen, crushing rocks, felling trees.

Thunderstorm over the airport. The air terminal is paralyzed: the landing and takeoff of planes is prohibited ... But the start button is pressed on the control panel of the lightning dissipative system. From a tower near the airfield, a fiery arrow shot up to the clouds. It was the artificial controlled ball lightning that had risen above the tower, switched to the linear lightning mode and, rushing into the thundercloud, entered it. The lightning path connected the cloud with the Earth, and electric charge clouds discharged to the Earth. The process can be repeated several times. There will be no more thunderstorms, the clouds have cleared. Planes can land and take off again.

In the Arctic, it will be possible to light an artificial one. From the 200-meter tower, a 300-meter charge path of artificial ball lightning rises up. Ball lightning switches to plasma mode and shines brightly from a height of half a kilometer above the city.

For good illumination in a circle with a radius of 5 kilometers, ball lightning is sufficient, emitting a power of several hundred megawatts. In an artificial plasma regime, such a power is a solvable problem.

The Electric Gingerbread Man, which has avoided close acquaintance with scientists for so many years, will not leave: sooner or later it will be tamed, and it will learn to benefit people.

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 hallmark and, in particular, says nothing about its temperature, as well as its composition. Most likely, it is determined by the presence of certain impurities," explains Igor Stakhanov, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, in his book on the nature of ball lightning.

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 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 near the Southern 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. From the international space station several pictures were taken that 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 space weather: The sun is calm - there are no radiances, spots appear on the Sun, or flames, - wait for the lights on the 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 with 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. infrasound human ear does not perceive (the noise of the arc of the aurora becomes audible only when magnified by 2 thousand 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 occur on other planets. solar system having an atmosphere and a magnetic field: on Venus, Saturn and Jupiter.

deadly weather

For reasons yet unknown, once every three to seven years, the trade winds suddenly weaken, the balance is disturbed, and 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 spelling with capital letter refers to the Christ child.

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, under the UN program in 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, because of 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 not defeated at all british navy, but still 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 is known from different points peace. 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 light 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 the mirror is special, it is composed 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, which has already disappeared behind the horizon, and instead of it one can see a luminous path going into the sky from the horizon for some time - 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". Eg, 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 the Sierra Nevada in California, on the dry Lake Racetrack Playa, lies national park Death Valley, the title holder of 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, with different speed and may even return 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 driving force stones are magnetic fields 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.

Ball lightning consequences. How ball lightning appears - interesting and amazing facts. Ball lightning color

Observation history

Historical evidence

Artificial reproduction of the phenomenon

Review of approaches for artificial reproduction of ball lightning

List of artificially reproduced ball lightning claims

Theoretical explanations of the phenomenon

Classification of theories

Review of existing theories

see also

Literature

Books and reports on ball lightning

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Links

Ball lightning in fiction

Notes

Ball lightning - the unsolved mystery of nature

Quite a bit of history

What kind of natural phenomenon is ball lightning? Hypotheses

Ball lightning shape

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Black ball lightning

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Ball lightning lifetime

Death of ball lightning

Secrets of ball lightning

VIDEO: 10 facts about ball lightning

How to behave

Ball lightning: how to escape if it appeared in the house?

How to help the victim

How to save yourself

VIDEO: Where can you see ball lightning?

The story of student Sergei Ogorodnikov

What is ball lightning

Ball Lightning Mystery

Ball lightning of Nikola Tesla

Historical evidence

Death of Georg Richmann

The Warren Hastings incident

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How ball lightning is formed

What is ball lightning made of?

Artificial ball lightning

Collection of ideal social studies essays

Anti-Soviet rebellion in Hungary (1956)