Until now, the nature of the formation of ball lightning has remained a mystery to scientists. Russian physicists have reproduced ball lightning in the laboratory and concluded that they are clouds of vaporized earth within a solid shell. Vladimir Bychkov, one of the leading researchers at the Department of Physics at Moscow State University, told socialbites.ca.
According to the model proposed by scientists, the formation of ball lightning occurs as follows:
“An ordinary lightning strikes the earth’s surface. The released energy evaporates part of the soil and creates a hole in it. The outer layers of the vapor cloud rapidly solidify and form a ball, trapping the vapor inside. This ball flies above the ground at the speed of sound, but eventually it must slow down under the influence of the atmosphere – it is precisely because of the high initial speed that people think that ball lightning appears out of nowhere. ”
So, ball lightning is a balloon filled with vaporized soil that glows due to heat. Its shell consists of a layer of frozen oxides (e.g. silicon or aluminum) a few microns thick found in the soil and can withstand high hot gas pressure. If created by negative linear lightning, ball lightning levitation occurs. The surface of the Earth is also negatively charged and therefore repels a ball with the same signed charge.
Before the emergence of this explanation, dozens of laboratory experiments were carried out, from which many miniature artificial balls of lightning were obtained. You can learn how scientists set up their experiments and watch a video of laboratory ball lightning. material “socialbites.ca”.