Scientists accidentally capture ball lightning, proving it to be a true natural phenomena

Scientists accidentally capture ball lightning, proving it to be a true natural phenomena - not an optical illusion


www.news.com.au... -optical-illusion/story-fn5fsgyc-1226806565419

VIDEO IN LINK

ST Elmo's fire. Angels. Min-min lights. These eerie orbs in the sky have been reported for centuries. Now science admits they exist!


For decades such unidentified flying objects have simply been dismissed as optical illusions or "swamp gas".
Now science has no excuse.
Mysterious ball lightning has been captured on scientific equipment - albeit by accident.
Scientists in China were observing the lightning of a thunderstorm with a simple video camera paired with a spectrometer - a device that measures the components of light - to identify the materials that produced it.

They got lucky.

In 2012, in the Qinghai region, they recorded a 5m wide spark of ball lightning. It glowed continuously for about 1.6 seconds and floated for a distance of some 15m.
It's taken more than a year of lab work, but now the scientists from Northwestern Normal University in Lanzhou, China, think they know what caused the spooky apparition.
The spectrometer revealed the lightning contained traces of silicon, iron and calcium. These elements were all present in the soil of the area.

reply to post by CaptainBeno


Your link was 'misplaced'… If its okay…

ball lightning

Real short video of the "ball" on the left and the spectrum on the right. Cool they were able to catch components of plasma and read it out. They found:

The spectrometer revealed the lightning contained traces of silicon, iron and calcium. These elements were all present in the soil of the area.

Interesting bit of info there. So lightning stuck something and a plasma ball formed from the impact and volatilized(?) debris. How cool is that?

I thought when they said "captured" they meant they actually held it in a magnetic bottle or something long enough to get a few frames.

reply to post by CaptainBeno


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Firepiston

reply to post by FirePiston


Sorry, I have tried to replace but will not work...

intrptr has very kindly placed one in his/her post.........Thanks intrptr!!

CaptainBeno
Scientists accidentally capture ball lightning, proving it to be a true natural phenomena - not an optical illusion


www.news.com.au... -optical-illusion/story-fn5fsgyc-1226806565419

VIDEO IN LINK

ST Elmo's fire. Angels. Min-min lights. These eerie orbs in the sky have been reported for centuries. Now science admits they exist!


For decades such unidentified flying objects have simply been dismissed as optical illusions or "swamp gas".
Now science has no excuse.
Mysterious ball lightning has been captured on scientific equipment - albeit by accident.
Scientists in China were observing the lightning of a thunderstorm with a simple video camera paired with a spectrometer - a device that measures the components of light - to identify the materials that produced it.

They got lucky.

In 2012, in the Qinghai region, they recorded a 5m wide spark of ball lightning. It glowed continuously for about 1.6 seconds and floated for a distance of some 15m.
It's taken more than a year of lab work, but now the scientists from Northwestern Normal University in Lanzhou, China, think they know what caused the spooky apparition.
The spectrometer revealed the lightning contained traces of silicon, iron and calcium. These elements were all present in the soil of the area.

edit on 20-1-2014 by CaptainBeno because: (no reason given)

Man, i literally thought they actually caught one of those things in a container or something!

Buzz kill man, buzz kill.

S'all good though, at least we know what these things are composed of. I first learned about them off of this funny article of unexplained but true phenomena on cracked.com.

Really? "Scientist" ? are these the very same scientist that have a big hungry dog that luvs his snacks and travel around the country in a "Mystery Van" ? Funy stuff. now, let me tell you a story about 2 huge spacecraft that live on the Moon in a land called honolee !

I have seen 'ball lightning', on more than one occasion it would seem. The first time I encountered it was in my room, when waking from a brief sleep. (Leaving open the possibility it was a hypnagogic hallucination, but I highly doubt it, as I suddenly awoke and was capable of movement, meaning I did not have sleep paralysis.) It was roughly the size of a grapefruit and green, illuminating my bedroom. I was younger and admittedly frightened. My immediate reaction was to shield myself with my blanket (haha), when I looked back a few seconds later it was gone.

The second time I saw something along the lines of ball lightning was at least a few years after the first. The sun was barely setting when my girlfriend at the time came running to and yelling for me from outside of her house. She was feeding her horses when she noticed something in the sky. I ran out and looked on in amazement at the light that was in the air before us. It had to be much larger than the one that had been in my room and it was amber this time, not green. It undulated slowly across the sky around at least three times the height of the tree tops until it met with a low cloud and disappeared in a cluster of bright flashes.

But wait, there may be more ... scientists suspect there may be many different types of ball lightning.

From the research I've done, it seems like 'ball lightning' is different types of phenomena that often get lumped together. The OP's article also mentions that it can be harmless at times, while others it can burn and kill. I think that the first ball lightning I encountered was the harmless (to less harmful) one.

In December 2012, a team of Australian CSIRO scientists published a study stating ball lightning may be an accumulation of ions on a nonconducting surface - such as a window.

That really made me think wow when I read the OP's link. The green ball lightning that was in my room was between my two windows. These are just theories after all. Some people attribute them to spiritual phenomena. They have been witnessed around crop circles before, during or after their formation. Perhaps they are probes from another dimension! Who knows! Different types of phenomena that may appear very similar on first inspection... however, they seem to occasionally be guided by something other than randomness.

The second time I saw it, I believe it was more akin to this type of electric phenomena



Here's another vid

That's actually very cool to read about.

A flag for this thread.


Thanks for posting that