This article is taken from Les Indispensables de Sciences et Avenir #210 July/September 2022.
This phenomenon is so unique that most of the scientists who study it have never seen it in nature! However, ball lightning exists: it is evidenced by a lot of evidence, relatively consonant, once shaken off from beliefs, inevitably caused by a witness in front of this strange, and sometimes terrifying, luminous ballet. It usually appears during a thunderstorm as small iridescent balls about ten centimeters in diameter, consisting of light that appears solid, like the plasma of a volcano. After evolving above the ground for a few seconds in the smell of sulfur, the spheres disintegrate in the air.
Inside the house, even without an exit!
This article is taken from Les Indispensables de Sciences et Avenir #210 July/September 2022.
This phenomenon is so unique that most of the scientists who study it have never seen it in nature! However, ball lightning exists: it is evidenced by a lot of evidence, relatively consonant, once shaken off from beliefs, inevitably caused by a witness in front of this strange, and sometimes terrifying, luminous ballet. It usually appears during a thunderstorm as small iridescent balls about ten centimeters in diameter, consisting of light that appears solid, like the plasma of a volcano. After evolving above the ground for a few seconds in the smell of sulfur, the spheres disintegrate in the air.
Inside the house, even without an exit!
Among the many theories put forward – mini-black holes formed by contact with the Earth, debris of antimatter, or nuclear reactions caused by lightning – some do not seem completely implausible. In 2012, for example, an Australian team showed how ball lightning can appear inside a house, even without an exit: following the electromagnetic imbalance caused by the storm, ion flows accumulate on the surface of the house, perturbed by these voltage drops between inside and outside. windows, creating an electric field on the other side of the glass, generating a ball of ion plasma.
Photons ricochet inside an air bubble?
Attractive…but it’s just a model. In 2019, Russian volume Vladimir Torchigin argued that ball lightning could be composed of photons ricocheting inside a compressed air bubble as a result of the electric field created by light rays. It’s intriguing… but, I repeat, this is just a physical and mathematical model. The fireball is not going to be caught.