"Ball lightning"

Gaby

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Has someone seen a "ball lightning"? It sounds weird, but someone is trying either to rationalize or make sense of it...

Seeking to solve the mystery of ball lightning

_http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/27735

Scientists have struggled for centuries to explain the balls of fire that are sometimes seen to occur during thunderstorms. But as Edwin Cartlidge reports, recent attempts to reproduce ball lightning in the laboratory might reveal once and for all the nature of this strange phenomenon

Former electronic engineer Eddie Sines will never forget what he saw one stormy summer's day while staying at his grandparents' house in Maryland, US, in the early 1960s. As he watched a lightning bolt strike a transformer on a telephone pole near the house, Sines suddenly noticed a light-green luminous sphere, about the size of a tennis ball, appear on top of the transformer. Bouncing off the transformer, the ball skirted along the underside of the cable that connected the pole to the house, came off at a dip in the cable and passed straight through the window that Sines was looking through. It then hit the back wall of the room, where it made a small crackling sound and left bright trails of static electricity dancing all over the wall.

Sines had witnessed what is known as ball lightning, a phenomenon in which a fiery sphere floats through the air near the surface of the Earth, usually during a thunderstorm. Eyewitnesses usually describe the ball as being flame coloured but some have reported seeing white, red, blue or green objects. The diameter of ball lightning can range from a centimetre to a metre or more, while its motion also varies dramatically. It can drop out of the sky, move upwards from the ground, travel quickly in a straight horizontal line, and at other times meander slowly – sometimes entering or leaving buildings by way of chimneys, doors or, like that seen by Sines, windows. Balls of lightning have even been seen passing down the aisles of aircraft in mid-flight.[...]
and almost a year later...

Scientists probe fireballs with X-rays

_http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/32998

Scientists have been baffled for centuries about the strange drifting balls of light that appear occasionally during thunderstorms. Theories put forward so far suggest that this “ball lightning” is either a moving electrical discharge or that it is some kind of self-contained object. Now, research from an Israeli group is making the latter seem more likely. The scientists have created artificial fireballs and then used the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble to analyse their composition.

Although a rare phenomenon, ball lightning has been glimpsed by several thousand people around the world, each of whom seems to recount a different set of properties. Diameters range from a centimetre to over a metre, colours are anything from red to white to blue, while motion encompasses both vertical descent and horizontal meandering. The fireballs have even been seen entering buildings via chimneys and windows. However, such sightings are always unexpected, so there is seldom an opportunity to observe ball lightning systematically.

A number of research groups are therefore trying to recreate ball lightning in the lab. Two years ago, electrical engineers Eli Jerby and Vladimir Dikhtyar of Tel Aviv University in Israel were able to make artificial fireballs by focusing microwaves onto substrates made from silicon and other solids placed inside a shoebox-sized cavity. They melted part of the silicon by delivering microwaves through a metal tip that, when pulled away, could drag some vaporized silicon with it. This created a column of fire that eventually detached to form a buoyant, quivering fireball coloured orange, red and yellow.

Now, Jerby and Dikhtyar have tested the composition and properties of their fireballs by installing the cavity, which contains a substrate of borosilicate glass, in a beamline at ESRF. After passing X-rays through the cavity and generating diffraction patterns, they discovered that the fireballs contain about 109 particles per cm3, each of which has an average diameter of about 50 nm (Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 065001).

They believe that this observation supports a theory put forward by John Abrahamson, a chemical engineer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, proposing that ball lightening occurs when ordinary lightning vapourizes carbon and silicon oxides within soil, allowing the carbon to chemically reduce the silicon into its elemental form. The silicon atoms then cool, condense and group together into nanoparticles, which oxidise in the surrounding air and give off thermal radiation.

Unresolved

This latest research does not solve the mystery of ball lightning, however. Whereas many witnesses have reported glowing orbs that persist for several seconds — sightings that back up Abrahamson’s theory — Jerby and Dikhtyar’s fireballs glow for just 30–40 ms once the microwave source is turned off.


The Israeli group speculate that the mechanism responsible for the longevity of ball lightning in Abrahamson’s theory is masked in their experiments. Abrahamson points out that as the silicon nanoparticles oxidize, the rate at which further oxygen molecules can reach the silicon diminishes, thereby slowing the dissipation of the nanoparticles’ chemical energy. Jerby says that this oxidation process may occur while the silicon is being illuminated with microwaves and that their chemical energy is therefore almost spent by the time the microwave source is removed.

In addition to this problem of fireball lifetime, Abrahamson’s theory has still to explain exactly how ball lightning can pass through windows, walls and other objects. Jerby, however, is optimistic that these problems can be overcome and that eventually real ball lightning will be recreated in the laboratory. He also believes that his group’s work could have important practical applications, such as producing nanoparticles directly from solid materials.
 
Psyche said:
Has someone seen a "ball lightning"? It sounds weird, but someone is trying either to rationalize or make sense of it...

Seeking to solve the mystery of ball lightning

I noticed that this thread was started quite a while ago but since the question was posed "Has someone seen a "ball lightning"" and my answer is yes, I have seen and experienced ball lightning.

I was traveling from Madison, Wisconsin to Newark, New Jersey on a Boeing 737. Unfortunately I cannot recall the year but it was at least 10 years ago, so maybe 2002. The weather in Madison at my departure was clear and it remained so until reaching the Allegheny Mountains over Pennsylvania. where the weather turned to heavy rain. I was seated at the emergency exit near the rear of the fuselage. Their was only one seat in this row directly next to the exit door on the port side of the aircraft. Directly across the aisle from my seat or the star board side was another exit door with no seating in place.

The aircraft had begun its decent for Newark and there was just a tiny bit of turbulence experienced as we approached the New Jersey border. The rain began to intensify and I did not notice any nearby lightning (air to ground or visa-verse). The stewardess had just left the galley at the rear of the craft and walked up the aisle toward the cockpit. As she passed the emergency exit I heard a "ffftzzzt" and a tiny "pop" as I stared at the star board emergency exit door a line of very bright plasma (this is my non-scientific description) which was white/orange in color trailed through the door. At its leading edge was a baseball sized glob of plasma (yellow/orange) hit the floor about three feet from the door. The ball continued to make a percussive sputtering noise, rolled around in an oval elliptic pattern making approximately two complete circuits (the tail continued to follow the ball in the ellipse) but this may very well have been an optical illusion (the tail that is) due to the swiftness of the entire event. The whole scenario lasted approximately 7 seconds and to my perspective at least there were two distinct features and colors, the ball and the tail.

When the ball portion hit the deck of the cabin it flattened somewhat and then reformed into a sphere and the size remained constant until the ball left the oval and "fell" into the center of the oval with a loud crackle and pop evaporated. The distance from me to the object was approximately two feet. The energy that radiated from the object was quite intense and I nearly lost my lunch from the final sound it made. All the while this is happening and in the time it took me to think. . ."hmmmm, ball lightning. . . cool. . ."it was over. The plane was relatively empty and there was no one near me for at least 10 rows. The stewardess ran back to my seat and asked me what that "noise" was - I just shrugged my shoulders and said "ball-lightning, I guess?!" She said "Oh, are you ok?" I answered - "I think so." She shrugged her shoulders and continued with her duties.

It was comforting that at least one other person on the flight acknowledged the sound because the experience was so surreal that I thought that the whole scenario was simply in my mind.

I did not freak out during the episode - but the entire trip back to my Manhattan apartment I was shaking and sweating profusely and why I thought or knew that it was ball-lightning I have no clue, since I cannot recall reading or hearing about such phenomenon.

Jeffery


Edit=Quote
 
Hey Psyche: There have been experiments to make ball lightning in the laboratory. Check out Ken Shoulders' papers. I'm out now but if I can find specifics later, I'll post
 
I recall my father telling me that my grandpa and he saw one in a forest, during the night, when he was a kid. So I came to associate it with trees. But I guess it is not necessarily so.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byBzy6Jwhf0

I don't know if this is the same type of "ball lightning" but I have seen such object a year ago. It was red and moved very slowly across the sky, just like in this video. It made no sound. The weather was fine.
 
I have never experienced ball lightning myself, but I was just reading about it in 'Mysterious Lights and Crop Circles' by Linda Moulton Howe. In the book there are a couple of eyewitness photos of ball lightning that I cannot find online. From the book:

Another later 1980 paper in Naturwissenschaften, Vol. 67, pages 332-337 was written by physicist Stanley Singer Ph.D. He said, "Ball lightning remains a mystery despite consideration extending over one and one half centuries by a number of distinquished scientists. The fireball is observed in thunderstorms with intense electrical activity. The theoretical problem is that of accounting for a spherical structure which maintains its identity while moving freely in the air for some seconds and for a radiation process which continues over the same length of time.
Dr. Singer summarizes rare ball lightning as white, yellow, blue, green, red or orange in color with an average diameter of about twelve inches. It floats in the air for a few seconds and then dissapears either silently or with a loud explosion. Some people have touched the glowing balls with opposite results - some say there was a suprising lack of warmth while others have said there was intense heat. "A crackling sound and odors such as those associated with an electrical discharge are noted."
Plasma spheres are on the short list of theories about what ball lightning might be. One scientist, Carlheim-Gyllenskoeld, in 1905 suggested that an ionized rotating current in the atmosphere might be responsible."
 
The fireball is observed in thunderstorms with intense electrical activity.

One scientist, Carlheim-Gyllenskoeld, in 1905 suggested that an ionized rotating current in the atmosphere might be responsible.

Well, if our atmosphere became more electrified then it maybe also became possible for these balls to appear without thunderstorms.
 
Hmmm.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning

It has been suggested that ball lightning could be the source of the legends that describe luminous balls, such as the Mapuche Anchimayen of mythology (of southern Argentina and Chile).
In a 1960 study, 5% of the US population reported having witnessed ball lightning.[4][5] Another study analyzed reports of 10,000 cases.[4][6]
M. l'abbé de Tressan, in Mythology compared with history: or, the fables of the ancients elucidated from historical records:<blockquote>... during a storm which endangered the ship Argo, fires were seen to play round the heads of the Tyndarides, and the instant after the storm ceased. From that time, those fires which frequently appear on the surface of the ocean were called the fire of Castor and Pollux. When two were seen at the same time, it announced the return of calm, when only one, it was the presage of a dreadful storm. This species of fire is frequently seen by sailors, and is a species of ignis fatuus. (page 417)</blockquote>This account, however, shares more commonalities with the St. Elmo's fire phenomenon

Then we have:

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,4497.msg30125.html#msg30125

Leda and the Swan (1924)

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.

Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

http://en(dot)wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Leda_and_the_Swan[/color

Blood of the air - as in plasma?

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_and_Pollux]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_and_Pollux

In Greek and Roman mythology, Castor[1] and Pollux[2] or Polydeuces[3] were twin brothers, together known as the Dioscuri.[4] Their mother was Leda, but Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, and Pollux the divine son of Zeus, who seduced or raped Leda in the guise of a swan (Greek myths concerning divine sex are often vague on the issue of female consent). Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra.
In Latin the twins are also known as the Gemini[5] or Castores.[6] When Castor was killed, Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini. The pair was regarded as the patrons of sailors, to whom they appeared as St. Elmo's fire, and were also associated with horsemanship.
They are sometimes called the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids,[7] later seen as a reference to their father and stepfather Tyndareus.
 
Here is a very interesting video.

Building on the works of Russian scientist Sergei Stepanov and later, the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, kVA Effects creates a Plasma Ball Generator, two Tesla coils and two other high voltage exhibits for Technorama, the Swiss science museum.
Some believe that ball lightning and plasma balls are related phenomenon and physicists in Germany are using high speed, infrared and ultraviolet cameras to capture and study their nature and why they exsist.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4XLUfBR0AU
 
I'm not sure if it would be related at all, but when i was a kid i had a racetrack that ran on batteries, and when the batteries were dead i cut the wires that ran to the battery pack so that i could plug them directly into a wall outlet. It was in the basement on a concrete floor. When i flattened the wires and tried to plug them into the outlet it scared the bejeezus out of me because it sparked. I watched this spark then land on the concrete in the form of a ball. It rolled around in a circle faster and faster in a spiral going towards a center. It got smaller and smaller as it did this until it just completely dissipated.
Persej said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byBzy6Jwhf0

I don't know if this is the same type of "ball lightning" but I have seen such object a year ago. It was red and moved very slowly across the sky, just like in this video. It made no sound. The weather was fine.

This red ball sounds like the same thing i saw when i was about twelve with my stepmom and her son. We were driving home down gravel roads from town when we noticed a red ball hovering above the truck on the passenger side about thirty feet in the air. It stayed with us matching our speed for about five or more minutes and then stopped and turned with us as we came to a stop sign and made a turn. This continued for a few more minutes until it shot straight ahead at a very rapid speed. It went as far away aa our eyes could see so it must have been faster than the speed of sound. It then turned bright white, seemed to get very large, and then just dissapeared.
 
Another ball lighting appeared in Belgrade. It looks exactly like the one I saw a couple of years ago, only that that one was moving horizontally. The noise that you can hear in the background is coming from people who were demonstrating against the curfew because of the coronavirus.


 
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