Spherical lightning usually appears in thunderstorm weather. It is very bright, slightly spherical and about 20 to 50 cm in diameter. Usually it lasts only a few seconds, but there are also 1-2 minutes. Even more amazing, it can move independently and slowly in the air. Some witnesses said it would follow metal objects, such as telephone lines, but most people said its path was uncertain. Most witnesses said it moved horizontally. In its short life of a few seconds, its luminosity, shape and size remain unchanged. It has appeared in open spaces, closed rooms and even airplane cabins! There are signs that it is closely related to lightning between clouds and the ground (that is, common ordinary lightning), and witnesses say it will form or disappear after ordinary lightning. Spherical lightning may explode violently, or it may suddenly disappear quietly. In terms of color, opinions vary and there is no consistent description.
Spherical lightning is destructive. It can not only destroy the glass window, but also make the outer layer of the wall peel off. It also caused human and animal casualties, but due to insufficient information, the real cause of death has not yet been known. There is no evidence that ball lightning will destroy trees, which is slightly different from ordinary lightning. Spherical lightning can hardly be destroyed Someone once used a rifle to shoot ball lightning, but it didn't work.
Because of the low frequency of spherical lightning, it is difficult for scientists to make systematic observation, and no one has taken high-quality photos for scientific research so far. Theoretically, some people think it is a hot air mass or a vaporized element, such as carbon, sodium or copper. Although this theory can explain some characteristics of spherical lightning, it can't explain why it can form in the aircraft cabin. In addition, there are many different theories, such as plasma, ions, charged dust, and water with an outer electron layer, but none of them can fully explain this scientific unsolved case. If you have ever seen or taken photos of ball lightning, be sure to record all the information! That will be very valuable research data.
Spherical lightning is mysterious because it is not common. Its ethereal whereabouts, changeable colors and shapes, and its great destructive power to stop time fascinate human beings. Therefore, as early as ancient Greece, people began to pay attention to this strange natural phenomenon.
Strange witness records
In the 1940s, in a small town in France, three soldiers were killed by lightning while sheltering from the rain under a bodhi tree, but they still stood there as if nothing had happened. After the thunderstorm, pedestrians talked to them and didn't respond. When pedestrians contacted, three bodies suddenly fell to the ground and turned into a pile of ashes.
1956 At noon in the summer, on a collective farm in the Soviet Union, two children took shelter from the rain in the cowshed. Suddenly, an orange fireball rolled under the poplar tree in front of the house and came at them. A child kicked it, and with a bang, the fireball exploded. 12 cows in the cowshed killed 1 1, and the child was knocked to the ground, but was not injured. Afterwards, people realized that this fireball was a rare spherical lightning.
A strange thing happened in a small town in the United States: a housewife came home from the market and opened the refrigerator to see that all the raw ducks and raw meat she put in had turned into cooked food. Scientists didn't know until they studied it that it was ball lightning that turned the refrigerator into an electric stove. Strangely, the refrigerator was not damaged!
198 1 One day in June, a Soviet airliner was struck by spherical lightning near the Black Sea. A big fireball rushed into the cockpit and caused an explosion. A few seconds later, it passed through the sealed metal bulkhead and appeared in the passenger's cockpit. After a dramatic performance, it left the plane and made almost no noise. After inspection, there is a hole in the metal wall of the nose and tail, but the inner wall is intact.
In Oregon, USA, a ball lightning came and went like the wind. First, it left a hole the size of a basketball on the screen door, and then it went straight to the basement, mercilessly destroying an old dryer. The experience of a Russian teacher is even more terrible. A ball lightning with a diameter of 80 cm bounced over his head and disappeared after jumping for more than 20 times. In addition, the former Soviet Union also reported that a ball lightning flew into a large pot filled with water, and the water immediately boiled, and the ball lightning rolled in the pot for 10 minutes before it went out. Another time, a lightning ball the size of a football rolled and jumped in the street. When it touched the ground, it actually blew out some pits with a depth of half a meter and a diameter of 1 meter. Finally, with a bang, the fireball went underground.
1March 999 16 in the afternoon, China, Zaoyang City, northern Hubei Province, suddenly thundered frequently, causing 9 deaths and more than 20 injuries on the spot. According to witnesses, red light appeared at the scene of lightning strike, which is the characteristic of spherical lightning.
Some people suspect that the main culprit of the Tunguska explosion in Russia in the last century was spherical lightning.
General characteristics of spherical lightning
Spherical lightning is still a strange natural phenomenon that people cannot explain. Many witnesses think that ball lightning moves like wisdom, as if it knows where to go. If it enters a room, it usually goes through the door or window and then reaches the corridor. Of course, this is just people's imagination.
According to many eyewitness materials, we can probably outline the basic outline of spherical lightning. This luminous sphere is between the size of a golf ball and a football ball, and its colors are white, green, yellow and orange, and its brightness can be equivalent to a 100 watt light bulb. Generally, the duration of spherical lightning is about 5 ~ 10 second. It will float freely in the near-earth air with the fluctuation of airflow, and sometimes it will go against the wind, and it can go through doors and windows, enter the room, and even go through the chimney of the stove. Sometimes it hovers, sometimes it disappears silently, and sometimes it hits an obstacle and explodes and disappears with a loud noise. Ball lightning runs very slowly, sometimes at the same speed as human beings. In rare cases, it will make a slight whistle, beep or hiss. A common feature is that spherical lightning almost always occurs in thunderstorm days.
Characteristics of spherical lightning
The diameters of large and small spherical lightning vary from 15 ~ 30cm, but some people have seen the diameters of 1 ~ 2cm and 5 ~ 10m. It can change its diameter at a fixed frequency, gradually weaken and become smaller, and explosion can increase its volume and end it. You can change the size by decomposition or recombination.
It is reported that most shapes are spherical or oval, and there are oblate rectangles, cubes, rings, dumbbells, clouds, cylinders, bullets, cigars, cones, lenses, shields and spirals.
The two most common colors are white and orange, others are red, blue, yellow and green, and silver and black are rare. Some ball lightning will change color.
The speed can range from standstill to unimaginable high speed (more than 20,000 kilometers per hour, but this is not the case in thunderstorm weather), and the general speed is about 5 meters per second, that is, 18 kilometers per hour.
The structure seems to be some kind of plasma or cloud material. Some spherical lightning centers are transparent, some are hollow, or there is no obvious fixed structure at all. Some spherical lightning seems to be in dynamic change.
Liquidity is sometimes static. Most of them move in a straight line, some rotate in a stationary position, some rotate constantly, and some run in an obviously complicated path.
Life-span spherical lightning usually lasts for several seconds, such as 7-8 seconds, and some can last for more than 1 minute.
Some behaviors will imitate the movement of objects around them, while others will go straight to the earth. Some ball lightning seems to be "investigating" other objects. Most of them are directed to metal or magnetic objects, which will cause strong collision and sometimes great damage. Lightning balls will jump, decompose, recombine, decay, explode or all these changes will happen at the same time.
In rare cases, the sound will crackle or hiss.
Smell. Witnesses said it smelled of burning or sulfur. It is also said that sometimes there is a smell of burnt oil or ammonia or ozone.
Mixed character
Temperature: People who touch ball lightning say it's cold-it just doesn't feel hot. But it can boil pots, fuses and heat metals.
Brightness: Spherical lightning is generally as bright as street lamps. Sometimes they can be seen during the day, but people usually see them at night to light up the earth.
Occurrence: They usually occur during thunderstorms, but rarely before or after thunderstorms. Most spherical lightning is accompanied by ordinary lightning-hovering and waiting, but sometimes they also hit the earth directly from the clouds like ordinary lightning.
Causes of human self-immolation
1966 65438+At 9: 00 am on February 5, a gas worker came to Dr. Bentley's house to check his watch in Porter, Pennsylvania, USA. Thinking that the old doctor hadn't got up yet, he went straight to the basement to look at his watch. When I entered the basement, I found a pile of ashes on the ground. He looked up and saw a big hole in the ceiling above the ashes. He was surprised and hurried to find the old doctor, but in the bathroom, he saw that there was only half a leg left on the floor where the hole was burned, and the old man's body had been reduced to ashes. There was no sign of fire in the whole scene.
Some scientists call this phenomenon "self-immolation" and give a definition: the so-called "self-immolation" refers to the phenomenon that the human body is not in contact with external fire sources, and the inside burns into ashes, while all combustible materials around the ashes remain intact.
Judging from more than 200 existing cases, the proportion of men and women who "set themselves on fire" is roughly equal; The age ranged from 4 months to 1 14 years old; The body is fat and thin, and some cases even occur in the process of walking, driving, boating and dancing.
So, what is the reason for "human self-immolation"? Opinions vary, and no one can agree. In the west, some people think that it is caused by excessive body fat. This explanation is obviously untenable, because people who set themselves on fire are fat and thin. Some people think that the self-immolation of human body is due to the burning of combustible substances in the body caused by some natural "electric fluid". What does the so-called natural "electrofluid" mean? Others think that spontaneous combustion is due to too much phosphorus in the body, which is unfounded. More interestingly, some people think that this is the phenomenon of alcohol spontaneous combustion caused by excessive drinking. The man also made a ridiculous experiment: injecting alcohol into a fresh piece of meat, but there was no "self-immolation" phenomenon.
In recent years, it has been pointed out that "self-immolation" is caused by spherical lightning in nature, so it is not spontaneous combustion, but spontaneous combustion. People who hold this view explain that ball lightning is like a big fireball, fluttering up and down in the air, which often surprises people who walk at night. Spherical lightning can pass through the cracks in doors and windows, enter the room and enter people's homes. Sometimes it will explode, destroy buildings and cause human and animal casualties. All obstacles encountered along the way are invincible, but you don't burn flammable things around you. Usually, the energy released by spherical lightning explosion is similar to that released by 10 kg TNT explosive explosion. Moreover, after the ball lightning disappears, it usually leaves the smell of burning, sulfur or ozone.
Explore the essence of spherical lightning
What exactly is an incredible ball lightning? For many years, the scientific community thought that spherical lightning did not exist, and it was not until recent decades that its authenticity was recognized.
As early as 1955, Soviet physicists suggested that spherical lightning was caused by the electromagnetic interference effect produced in thunderstorms. 199 1 year, Japanese scientists reported that they observed a series of phenomena similar to spherical lightning in their experiments. Their artificial plasma ball also shows some characteristics of spherical lightning, for example, it can move in the opposite direction to the main airflow and can cross solid matter.
1998, a Spanish physicist thought that the so-called mysterious spherical lightning was not mysterious, and this phenomenon was probably formed by luminous plasma confined by magnetic field in the process of lightning generation. He established the lightning magnetic field model, and thought that the key was the magnetic field line network formed by the interweaving of horizontal magnetic field and vertical magnetic field. In some special cases, this network of magnetic field lines may be spherical, and the luminous plasma will be "captured" by this network to form spherical lightning. This fireball effect will continue until the plasma begins to cool. The researchers pointed out that according to their budget, the fireball can last at most 10 to 15 seconds. When the plasma cools, electrons begin to be bound by atoms, the internal resistance of the plasma increases, the current weakens, the surrounding magnetic field collapses, and finally the fireball disappears.
According to this theory, spherical lightning is mostly cold, but the local temperature along the magnetic field lines is extremely high. The researchers pointed out that this can explain why fireballs do not heat up when they contact objects, and they often catch fire.
In 2000, two New Zealand scientists put forward their new theory. When general dendritic lightning strikes the soil, the minerals in the soil will be transformed into nano-pure silicon and silicon compound particles. These tiny particles, less than one tenth of a micron, will evaporate from the soil into the atmosphere under the action of lightning energy. This process is like a smoker spitting smoke rings out of his mouth. Silicon-containing particles entering the atmosphere will first connect into chains and then form a spherical filament network that can move with the airflow. The particles in the spherical wire mesh are very active, and will burn slowly under certain conditions, releasing light and heat, forming the so-called spherical lightning.
Witnesses reported that the spherical lightning they saw can pass through walls, windows and even the fuselage of an airplane, which can also be explained by this theory. There are gaps around the doors and windows of most houses, and the spherical fine wire mesh composed of silicon particles is extremely elastic. As long as the air can pass through, the fine wire mesh should also pass through. In other words, if air can pass through doors and windows, fine barbed wire can also "squeeze through" and then recover its shape.
Scientists tested soil samples with the discharge of lightning samples, and the results did produce polymeric nanoparticles. The oxidation rate of these ions is consistent with that of ball lightning.
New progress in research
On June 5438+1October 65438+May, 2002, the Royal Society published a series of articles on the theory of spherical lightning in the special issue of its academic magazine, Journal of Philosophy. These theories were put forward by physical chemists, physicists and chemical engineers respectively. They put forward three new theories to explain the cause of spherical lightning. Its main contents are as follows:
1. Spherical lightning consists of small water droplets containing hydrated ions, which release energy through ion reaction. In this theory, spherical lightning is an electrochemical structure containing plasma, which is maintained by the delicate balance of temperature, pressure, electromagnetic field and gravity field.
2. Spherical lightning is formed by winding polymer filaments and releasing energy through surface discharge. In this theory, natural particles in dust, such as those from cellulose, soot or silicon dioxide, can form filamentous structures, and these filaments are polymerized into highly charged spheres, which will emit light and heat when their surfaces are discharged.
3. Spherical lightning is composed of metal nanoparticle chains, and its energy release is carried out by surface oxidation of metal nanoparticles. In this theory, ordinary lightning can cause substances such as soil or wood to release metal vapor, and this charged metal vapor is concentrated into a grid of metal nanoparticles.
These theories are somewhat convincing, especially the third theory, which can explain why ball lightning can pass through walls and closed windows, and seems to be more convincing.
However, people have not made real spherical lightning in the laboratory, although they have simulated extremely miniature and short-lived spherical lightning. In fact, all theories are so thin in the face of the complexity and variability of ball lightning. A real theory of spherical lightning should explain all the phenomena, including the situation that there is no thunderstorm and the situation that spherical lightning lasts for a long time as big as a house. In order to find out, we need a stronger theory.
Some people think that a more convincing explanation should be the theory related to plasma phenomenon, which is close to the field of cold polymerization. Some people even think that spherical lightning and tornadoes are plasma masses. It is also assumed that the best theory may be the idea of combining electromagnetism, electricity, plasma and nanometer theory.
In a word, ball lightning is not only interesting, but also contains many secrets. Once we understand its essence, it may have a far-reaching impact on our human life. Perhaps, we can not only find the culprits of self-immolation and Tunguska Big Bang, but also find efficient and clean new energy sources.
Pictures,
I chose several websites that I think are credible:
Ball lightning scientists are still in the dark.
Scientists still know little about ball lightning.
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ABC's report on ball lightning
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Anatomy of lightning ball
There is also a picture of ball lightning.
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