What is ball lightning

All of us are well aware that such lightning. Lightning - a spark of high power, usually occurring during thunderstorms. But that's what the fireball? Let's learn about it that scientists say.

Theories of the nature of ball lightning

In fact, scientists around the world still do not know what it is - a fireball. It's so rare natural phenomenon that until now there is no recorded case of registration of ball lightning with the help of instruments.

There are only a few thousand photographs, often of very poor quality, which captured the fireball and many descriptions of ordinary people who are faced with this phenomenon.

A reasonable question would be, so let the wise heads will reproduce ball lightning in the laboratory. But scientists here in the same fiasco as there was not a single case where the artificially created ball lightning behave the same way as described by witnesses.

And the duration of "life" of the laboratory sample does not exceed a few seconds, though perfectly natural can be up to several minutes.

There was even a curious theory that ball lightning is nothing but an illusion generated by the disturbance of the electromagnetic field after hitting the most common lightning. But the destruction caused by the explosions of fireballs, they say the opposite.

The first fixation devices

The first and still the only registered fixation devices is considered to be an incident July 23, 2012 on the Tibetan plateau, where Chinese scientists possible to fix with a pair of gapless spectrometers (which scientists have studied the conventional lightning spectra) glow ball lightning over 1.64 seconds.

Moreover, as shown by the devices, in contrast to the classical spectrum zipper where there ionized nitrogen line spectrum fireball found iron line, silicon, and calcium.

Evidence of meeting with fireballs

Since August 6, 1944 in the small Swedish town of Uppsala fireball passed through the closed window, leaving a neat hole with a diameter of 5 cm. This phenomenon was observed not only local residents, but also a special tracking system for lightning strikes at the local university.

In 1954, this phenomenon was observed physicist Tar Domokos.

In 1978, August 17 a group of mountain climbers descending from the summit of Mount Trapeze stopped for the night at an altitude of 3900 meters. But according to the testimony of climbers fireball the size of a tennis ball appeared right in the tent for a long time flying from one participant to another campaign.

As a result of this contact, one climber was killed, and the others received severe burns 4 degrees, could call for help and were hospitalized. This case was described in detail in the Journal of 1982 "Techniques of Youth" of the year (January issue), and the article entitled "Meeting with a fireball."

In 2008, a fireball appeared in the bus (Kazan). The conductor using validator shoved the ball in the end trolley (where there were no passengers), where moments later there was an explosion of ball lightning.

Turns in an age when scientific minds they know what happened immediately after the big bang, there is still no generally accepted explanation of this simple yet complex phenomenon like a fireball. If you liked this article, then vote her huskies and thank you for your attention!