What is currently known about ball lightning?
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Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
I had never heard of this till about 7 years ago. He said it was considered pseudoscience/ fake mystic type of a phenomena. I have never seen it but I believe this is now considered a real phenomena? Like sprites?
У моей бабушки был такой случай: они с дедом сидели за столом, когда в комнату медленно влетел огненный шар, повисел между ними, и выплыл обратно на улицу. При этом он прожёг дыру в оконном стекле. Бабушка рассказывала, что они в этот момент боялись даже дышать, и сидели не шелохнувшись.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Was there a thunderstorm at the time?
There are accounts of similar events going back hundreds of years.
This image from 1901.
Да, гроза по видимому была. Потому что моя мама, зная об этом случае, всегда закрывала все окна во время грозы. Она боялась, что молния может влететь в открытое окно.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
I saw one once, on a tank farm in an oil plant in Essex, during a thunderstorm. Sadly, as it was in 1982 there were no camera phones to record it.
The mechanisms involved in the charge separation involved in ordinary lightning discharges are still not properly understood, still less an evanescent phenomenon like ball lightning.
Wizard of Whatever
Registered Senior Member
I remember reading that it was some type of self-contained EM field.
Маленькая звезда?
Richard Townsend
Registered Senior Member
Well, I'd say it's like thunder's little cousin – glowing, round, pops up during storms. Might be plasma, might be silicon burning, no one knows for sure. Pretty to look at, deadly if you're close. Bit like life, really.
Where would the silicon come from?
Ivan Seeking
Valued Senior Member
A 26-year-old hypothesis, I remember discussing this two decades ago.
Chemical energy models include Abrahamson & Dinniss's silicon nanoparticle oxidation hypothesis (2000, published in Nature), which proposes that lightning striking soil vaporizes silica, reduces it to silicon vapor, and the resulting nanoparticle network oxidizes slowly in air. This has some experimental support from Pavão & Paiva's laboratory demonstrations, but the generated luminous objects are short-lived (~200 ms) and don't fully replicate observed characteristics.
Ball lightning caused by oxidation of nanoparticle networks from normal lightning strikes on soil
Ball lightning caused by oxidation of nanoparticle networks from normal lightning strikes on soil - Nature
Observations of ball lightning have been reported for centuries, but the origin of this phenomenon remains an enigma. The ‘average’ ball lightning appears as a sphere with a diameter of 300 mm, a lifetime of about 10 s, and a luminosity similar to a 100-W lamp1. It floats freely in the air, and...
www.nature.com
Abstract
Observations of ball lightning have been reported for centuries, but the origin of this phenomenon remains an enigma. The ‘average’ ball lightning appears as a sphere with a diameter of 300 mm, a lifetime of about 10 s, and a luminosity similar to a 100-W lamp1. It floats freely in the air, and ends either in an explosion, or by simply fading from view. It almost invariably occurs during stormy weather2,3. Several energy sources have been proposed2,3,4 to explain the light, but none of these models has succeeded in explaining all of the observed characteristics. Here we report a model that potentially accounts for all of those properties, and which has some experimental support. When normal lightning strikes soil, chemical energy is stored in nanoparticles of Si, SiO or SiC, which are ejected into the air as a filamentary network. As the particles are slowly oxidized in air, the stored energy is released as heat and light. We investigated this basic process by exposing soil samples to a lightning-like discharge, which produced chain aggregates of nanoparticles: these particles oxidize at a rate appropriate for explaining the lifetime of ball lightning.
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exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Interesting. Certainly the ball lightning I saw did follow a lightning strike, and persisted for a few seconds before silently disappearing. And yes, the luminosity was like that of a light bulb. So the description fits. The conjecture about SiC interests me, as I saw it in the tank farm of an oil plant, with a brick bund and a concrete floor and a bit of hydrocarbon oil about, so no soil.A 26-year-old hypothesis, I remember discussing this two decades ago.
Chemical energy models include Abrahamson & Dinniss's silicon nanoparticle oxidation hypothesis (2000, published in Nature), which proposes that lightning striking soil vaporizes silica, reduces it to silicon vapor, and the resulting nanoparticle network oxidizes slowly in air. This has some experimental support from Pavão & Paiva's laboratory demonstrations, but the generated luminous objects are short-lived (~200 ms) and don't fully replicate observed characteristics.
Ball lightning caused by oxidation of nanoparticle networks from normal lightning strikes on soil
Ball lightning caused by oxidation of nanoparticle networks from normal lightning strikes on soil - Nature
Observations of ball lightning have been reported for centuries, but the origin of this phenomenon remains an enigma. The ‘average’ ball lightning appears as a sphere with a diameter of 300 mm, a lifetime of about 10 s, and a luminosity similar to a 100-W lamp1. It floats freely in the air, and...
Abstract
Observations of ball lightning have been reported for centuries, but the origin of this phenomenon remains an enigma. The ‘average’ ball lightning appears as a sphere with a diameter of 300 mm, a lifetime of about 10 s, and a luminosity similar to a 100-W lamp1. It floats freely in the air, and ends either in an explosion, or by simply fading from view. It almost invariably occurs during stormy weather2,3. Several energy sources have been proposed2,3,4 to explain the light, but none of these models has succeeded in explaining all of the observed characteristics. Here we report a model that potentially accounts for all of those properties, and which has some experimental support. When normal lightning strikes soil, chemical energy is stored in nanoparticles of Si, SiO or SiC, which are ejected into the air as a filamentary network. As the particles are slowly oxidized in air, the stored energy is released as heat and light. We investigated this basic process by exposing soil samples to a lightning-like discharge, which produced chain aggregates of nanoparticles: these particles oxidize at a rate appropriate for explaining the lifetime of ball lightning.
Roosters for ever
Registered Senior Member
Is ball lightening related to St Elmo's Fire? The latter without doubt has certainly been validated many times., as have sprites. To my knowledge they are all electrical discharges and plasmatic...the latter two reasonably common, the first pretty rare and rarely documented.
Ivan Seeking
Valued Senior Member
Ball lightning may not be just one phenomenon. No explanation accounts for the breadth of reports. And no one has successfully produced it in a lab.
St, Elmo's fire is just ionization of the surrounding air due to a high potential. Ball lightning is certainly far more complicated.
Roosters for ever
Registered Senior Member
More complicated (and rarer) perhaps, but still some atmospheric disturbance or discharge related to electricity, during storms. Certainly no evidence pointing to extremely unlikely supernatural phenomena or clandestine Alien visitation.
Ivan Seeking
Valued Senior Member
Well if you want to get snobby about it, there is very little evidence for it; far less than for UFOs.
There are a handful of anecdotes and a few fuzzy photos. The photo taken by a Forest Service employee that gave it credibility, is almost impossible to make sense of, it's so bad.
Ivan Seeking
Valued Senior Member
Or it may all be in your head....
Mysterious ball lightning: Illusion or reality?
Ball lightnings are circular light phenomena occurring during thunderstorms and there are a large class of reports by eyewitnesses having experienced such events. Scientists have been puzzled by the nature of these apparent fire balls for a long time. Now physicists at the University of Innsbruck have calculated that the magnetic field of long lightning strokes may produce the image of luminous shapes, also known as phosphenes, in the brain. This finding may offer an explanation for many ball lightning observations.Physicists Josef Peer and Alexander Kendl from the University of Innsbruck have studied electromagnetic fields of different types of lightning strokes occurring during thunderstorms. Their calculations suggest that the magnetic fields of a specific class of long lasting repetitive lightning discharges show the same properties as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a technique commonly used in clinical and psychiatric practice to stimulate neural activity in the human brain.
Time varying and sufficiently strong magnetic fields induce electrical fields in the brain, specifically, in neurons of the visual cortex, which may invoke phosphenes. “In the clinical application of TMS, luminous and apparently real visual perceptions in varying shapes and colors within the visual field of the patients and test persons are reported and well examined,” says Alexander Kendl. The Innsbruck physicists have now calculated that a near lightning stroke of long lasting thunderbolts may also generate these luminous visions, which are likely to appear as ball lightning. Their findings are published in the journal Physics Letters A.
Mysterious ball lightning: Illusion or reality?
Ball lightnings are circular light phenomena occurring during thunderstorms and there are a large class of reports by eyewitnesses having experienced such events. Scientists have been puzzled by the nature of these apparent fire balls for a long time. Now physicists at the University of...
www.uibk.ac.at
Roosters for ever
Registered Senior Member
My point is that it isn't anything supernatural or Alien. end of story.Well if you want to get snobby about it, there is very little evidence for it; far less than for UFOs.
There are a handful of anecdotes and a few fuzzy photos. The photo taken by a Forest Service employee that gave it credibility, is almost impossible to make sense of, it's so bad.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
However the link provided to Arxiv shows there were errors in the paper, which the authors subsequently corrected.Or it may all be in your head....
Mysterious ball lightning: Illusion or reality?
Ball lightnings are circular light phenomena occurring during thunderstorms and there are a large class of reports by eyewitnesses having experienced such events. Scientists have been puzzled by the nature of these apparent fire balls for a long time. Now physicists at the University of Innsbruck have calculated that the magnetic field of long lightning strokes may produce the image of luminous shapes, also known as phosphenes, in the brain. This finding may offer an explanation for many ball lightning observations.
Physicists Josef Peer and Alexander Kendl from the University of Innsbruck have studied electromagnetic fields of different types of lightning strokes occurring during thunderstorms. Their calculations suggest that the magnetic fields of a specific class of long lasting repetitive lightning discharges show the same properties as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a technique commonly used in clinical and psychiatric practice to stimulate neural activity in the human brain.
Time varying and sufficiently strong magnetic fields induce electrical fields in the brain, specifically, in neurons of the visual cortex, which may invoke phosphenes. “In the clinical application of TMS, luminous and apparently real visual perceptions in varying shapes and colors within the visual field of the patients and test persons are reported and well examined,” says Alexander Kendl. The Innsbruck physicists have now calculated that a near lightning stroke of long lasting thunderbolts may also generate these luminous visions, which are likely to appear as ball lightning. Their findings are published in the journal Physics Letters A.
Mysterious ball lightning: Illusion or reality?
Ball lightnings are circular light phenomena occurring during thunderstorms and there are a large class of reports by eyewitnesses having experienced such events. Scientists have been puzzled by the nature of these apparent fire balls for a long time. Now physicists at the University of...
QUOTE
APPENDIX (Erratum and Addendum by J. Peer, V. Cooray, G. Cooray and A. Kendl): The comparison of electric fields transcranially induced by lightning discharges and by TMS brain stimulators via View E = - dA/dt is shown to be inappropriate. Corrected results with respect to evaluation of phosphene stimulability are presented. For average lightning parameters the correct induced electric fields appear more than an order of magnitude smaller. For typical ranges of stronger than average lightning currents, electric fields above the threshold for cortical phosphene stimulation can be induced only for short distances (order of meters), or in medium distances (order of 50 m) only for pulses shorter than established axon excitation periods.
UNQUOTE
So this rather looks as if they got it wrong by an order of magnitude and that in reality the effect they postulate would only be felt by an observer very close indeed to the lightning bolt. (I was across a yard from the strike and inside a brick building when I saw mine.)
This paper seems to have been published 16 years ago and I can't find any trace of any follow-up of this idea of it being a phenomenon generated within the eye and nervous system of the observer. It seems that work has gone on to understand ball lightning as a physical phenomenon, e.g. this 2019 item from the Journal of Plasma Physics, published by Cambridge University Press: https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...l-lightnings/B038931C1703A6844505C38D579DBAB4