[Curiosities] The mystery of ball lightning

[Draeno]

Thunder and lightning! Surely you have heard this expression on more than one occasion. However, it is also possible that you have ever stopped to think about what a ball lightning is; a word whose concept, despite its familiarity, is a bit abstract.

Thus, a spark is a colloquial way of calling what scientists know of globular lightning, spherical lightning, ball lightning or luminous spheres. It is a strange and hitherto inexplicable meteorological phenomenon described as a luminescent object in the sky, electrical in nature, and which can vary between the size of a pea and several meters in diameter.

These phenomena are more common in humid places and close to large bodies of water, such as coasts or areas of swamps and wetlands. They have been observed in many different forms; some are small and barely visible, while others can be huge and bright, and have often been described as balls of fire or light that appear to float in midair.

HOW ARE GLOBULAR RAYS FORMED?
Although very little is known about how ball lightning forms, it is believed that it may be related to normal lightning. For example, one hypothesis about its formation suggests that ball lightning is a kind of "loophole" of normal lightning, formed when an electrical charge accumulates in the atmosphere and generates a ball of plasma.

Other highly varied hypotheses relate ball lightning to vaporized silicon that can rise into the atmosphere after a lightning strike, microwave radiation, the formation of plasma, or as Nikola Tesla himself proposed, with the formation of gas. highly rarefied, that is, regions of gas at very low pressure that give rise to nearly empty space.

Despite all the proposed hypotheses and the multiple sightings recorded throughout history, ball lightning is one of the most misunderstood meteorological phenomena today, which is why scientists continue to study it to better understand how it forms and how They affect our climate and our world.

 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com.es/ciencia/misterio-rayos-globulares_19781