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the glowing orbs science can't explain
Boing Boing • • science
Key Points:
- Ball lightning, glowing spheres appearing during thunderstorms, has been reported for centuries, often lasting several seconds and sometimes passing through solid objects or moving along wires.
- Historical accounts include deadly incidents, such as a fireball killing four people in a Devon church in 1638 and the death of Russian physicist Georg Richmann in 1753 when a ball lightning struck him during a storm experiment.
- Scientific study of ball lightning has been challenging due to reliance on eyewitness reports, but in 2014, Chinese researchers captured the first optical spectrum of ball lightning on the Tibetan Plateau.
- The spectrum revealed elements like silicon, iron, and calcium, supporting the hypothesis that ball lightning forms when lightning vaporizes silicon from the ground, which then burns slowly in the air.
