Strange rays of light on Earth

Holy fire, green flashing or lightning, are strange light streams that scientists are still trying to explain.

The strange light has no solution

During their voyages at sea, sailors occasionally saw a green light dancing on top of the black masts. This strange light has no heat or burn anything on the boat. They are often seen by sailors as auspicious and called the Holy Elmo Flame, according to the patron saint of seafarers.

Painting depicts Saint Elmo's Flame atop Christopher Columbus's boat mast in 1492. (Photo: SPL).

Atmospheric scientist Steve Ackerman, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, was attracted to the Holy Elmo Flame when his brother saw this unique phenomenon. Ackerman's brother was then repairing copper plumbing in the basement on a bad weather day.

"A thunderstorm comes and at a time, a blue light appears above many copper tubes , " Ackerman said. "That's when I started my journey to find out the cause of this phenomenon."

Strong electric field clouds are caused by the difference in charge between clouds and the ground. Sharp objects such as masts or metal pipes can increase the electric field strength. When the electric field is strong enough to some extent, they will cause ionized air molecules to become charged particles, causing the glowing plasma phenomenon.

Similar plasma light can be created in the laboratory, using sharp or sharp objects to increase the electric field intensity. Even so, Ackerman still wants to see the Saint Elmo Flame form in nature . "I still have not seen this phenomenon directly, I am trying to find an opportunity , " he said.

Will-o'-the-wisp marshes on the marshes.The depiction of the spotlight is on a swamp in the 19th century. (Photo: SPL).

Like Will Elmo, the Will-o'-the-wisp is a faint flash of light recounted by many people for centuries. However, the difference between the two phenomena is that the reports of marshes are scarce. Will-o'-the-wisp has never been created in a laboratory.

Witnesses often describe Will-o'-the-wisp as a light that is flickering or stable, often lying on the ground, mostly in the marshy countryside. This light is supposed to disappear after about two minutes.

Luigi Garlaschelli, from the University of Pavia, Italy, who is famous for the construction of the Shroud of Turin by using some tips in the laboratory, wishes to study the mysterious light spot phenomenon in the swamp. However, it is unclear whether his research subject this time exists or not.

"There is a risk that we are looking for something that doesn't even exist , " Garlaschelli skeptical. "We must trust or hope that the Will-o'-the wisp reports are real."

In the case of Will-o'-the-wisp is actually the result of a natural phenomenon, Garlaschelli can test some assumptions. For example, the connection between light and wetlands suggests that light can be generated from swamp gas, mostly methane, burned. However, the cause of methane burning is still unclear.

It is also possible that reports of marshland light are only a result of imagination or illusion. Or, this light is merely a reflection of the Moon or other sources of light that are misinterpreted by witnesses.

Earthquake light.Earthquake halo recorded at Mount Kimyo, Japan.(Photo: University of California).

"You can stand right there in the middle of these light halos," Friedemann Freund, from NASA's SETI Institute, located in Mountain View, California, USA. "The hair may be electrically infected, and the aura appears on the head like a saint. However, this light does not burn anything. Maybe you feel a little different but not hurt at all. ".

Freund is describing the feeling of standing in the strange light that scientists call earthquake light . This light is the result of plasma discharge, which occurs when a certain rock is under great pressure, due to a fracture of seismic activity, which results in an electric charge.

"We think that when compressing the rocks at a very fast rate, the charge is released into the air through plasma currents , " Freund said.

Earthquake light appears under many sizes, shapes and colors. Seismic halos, phenomena that occur in earthquakes, are streams of light rising from the ground, which can span several kilometers. Each halo can continue to rise to a height of 200-300m in the sky in a fraction of a second.

In recent years, the installation of security cameras has helped record many stunning videos of earthquake lighting.

"One of the best movies recorded in Peru , " Freund said. " A friend at a local university had a movie when the 8-magnitude quake struck Lima. The shockwaves came, and when the next wave came, the sky seemed to have a light explosion. ".

Ball lighting.(Photo: Mary Evans Photo Library).

Although not recognized and considered a myth in the long run, lightning is a real phenomenon.
In 2012, a group of scientists carried out research on the usual lightning strikes in the area that often suffered storms in the Qinghai Plateau, China. Suddenly, a 5 meter diameter lightning appeared right in front of them. The ball of light has a bright white color, then turns red, exists for a few seconds and then disappears.

This is the first natural clay rock studied. Scientists recorded the spectrum of lightning and analyzed whether it was possible to determine the cause of this mysterious type of lightning.

The results showed that lightning phenomenon originated from the ground itself. When a normal bolt of lightning strikes straight from a thundercloud to the ground, some minerals in the soil evaporate. Some minerals contain silicon compounds, under extreme conditions, chemical reactions occur that form highly reactive silicon fibers, which burn in oxygen to form the orange light that researchers observe. OK.

Green or Blue Flash (Green Flash) appears when the Sun goes down.(Photo by Stephen & Dona O'meara / SPL).

In the last seconds before the Sun goes down, the sun's rays turn to bright green. However, the Sun did not change color, the blue flash was formed by illusion .

The white light of the Sun passes through the dispersed atmosphere into different colors, similar to when shining light through a prism. The Earth's atmosphere acts as a prism that bends red light more than orange, orange more than gold and the like. Due to the greatest bending effect, red light seems to be lost under the horizon first, followed by orange, yellow and green.

The greenish-green spectrum like blue, indigo and violet is most strongly scattered into the atmosphere, which is why the sky seems to be green. The final result, the color we see when the Sun goes down the horizon, is green.

Normally, this phenomenon occurs quite weakly. In order for the blue halo around the sun to be visible, there must be an illusion that makes the sun bigger than usual. Such illusions can make the Sun look like it is moving on waves and is like a liquid mass when diving down to the horizon.

The best position for the Blue Sun phenomenon is the horizon on the ocean.

Reverse lightning.(Photo: Tom A. Warner).

Putting the camera on top of the Empire State building in New York, USA in 1935, General Electric company Karrl McEachron recorded an unusual phenomenon. The lightning does not come from the cloud hitting the ground but on the contrary, it originates from the building and fires directly on the storm clouds.

Current meteorologists determine that in about 1,000 lightning strikes there will be a reverse lightning bolt. However, decades of studying this phenomenal phenomenon have yet to give a satisfactory explanation.

Photographers specializing in hurricanes Tom Warner are studying reverse lightning formation, at the South Dakota School of Mining and Technology, Rapid City, USA.

His research and many other studies show that there are two distinct types of reverse lightning. Essentials for both are a high building like skyscrapers or wind turbines.

The first type of reverse lightning requires a normal lightning strike from the cloud to the ground first. The sudden break of the electric field will create the lighting leader, or the path of lightning transmission, a negative or positive charge, the opposite direction to the thundercloud with opposite charges. The second type does not require normal downward lightning strikes to occur first and can be launched completely automatically.

Warner began to study and capture the image of this rare phenomenon from being fascinated by lightning in 2004. In order to get valuable data and photos for research, Warner himself drove the plane. Iron wrap rushes into the center of the storm.

"Experiencing storms at close range and even inside gives a really great feeling. This mission is challenging and requires a great deal of concentration. Every time I fly through a thundercloud, I can be certain that this is not a place for aircraft, " Warner said.

Sprite deformed lightning.The first color photo of the sprite iron heterosexual recorded on July 4, 1994.(Photo: NASA / Alaska University / SPL).

Above the stormy cloud, people could spot a bright red pants stretching from 10 to hundreds of kilometers, in the shape of a fire jellyfish with long red tails that dropped below the round body. Very powerful thunderstorms are capable of producing this phenomenon, often referred to as the Sprite deformed lightning .

"They are very powerful," said Martin Fullekru, Bath University, England. "The thunderstorm needs to create a special kind of lightning, which is very rare. Perhaps in a thousand lightning bolts, it will create a sprite lightning strike".

These lightning bolts need to release many electrons from the thundercloud. A long and slow charge current is needed to form a heterogeneous clay, which can be generated in storms covering 100 km.

The heterosexual lightning is named Sprite by the name of a character in Shakespeare 's Summer Night Dream that comes from its rarity. But now, images of heterosexual lightning are recorded more frequently. Normal camcorders with good night vision can record deformed lightning, even for low image quality. Amateur meteor observers have also gathered many additional documents about this phenomenon.

"You can get an image of heterosexual lightning with a camera that costs more than $ 300," Fullekrug said. "Plus a few guidelines, anyone can do this."

Lightning deformed ELVES.This special lightning looks like a donut and lasts only about a millisecond.(Photo: Oscar van der Velde).

ELVES stands for "Very low frequency and light disturbance from electrical pulse sources". Appearing at an altitude of 80-100km from the ground, the ELVES deformed clay is very different from the sprite deformed lightning.

"They radiate bright circles, like donuts in space, with a dark hole right in the middle. The heterosexual ELVES can spread about 1,000 kilometers," Fullekrug describes.

ELVES takes place in a flash, lasting less than a millisecond. The storm conditions needed to create the heterosexual ELVES include a certain type of lightning with a sudden increase in electric current. Unlike the sprite clay form, ELVES requires sudden discharge, so these two special types of lightning rarely occur at the same time.

ELVES is more likely to appear than Sprites, at a rate of 1/100. Small storms are also capable of producing it like a strong storm, because a fast charge current can occur during any storm. ELVES clay is mainly white because their strength is very strong.

"They are very, very fast. It is difficult to see ELVES with only the naked eye. I myself have not seen a lot of observations though," Fullekrug said.

Blue clay (Blue Jet).(Artwork: Victor Habbick Visions / SPL) .

"Green clay is still a mystery , " Fullekrug said. The first reason is because they are green while atmospheric blue phenomena are difficult to study, because the atmosphere often scatters blue light strongly. Next, green lightning is very rare.

The scientist said the storms often have a fairly strong vertical movement that helps push up storm clouds."This is a condition to produce green lightning, but we cannot be sure of this," concluded Fullekrug.

Giant lightning.Huge lightning image recorded above a storm in North Carolina, USA, 2009. (Photo: Steven Cummer)

Besides green lightning, researchers also know of another phenomenon called giant lightning , which seems to be a combination of blue lightning and sprite-shaped lightning . They are wider, wedge-shaped and easy to see. Giant lightning can last 10-100 milliseconds, quite a long time compared to other phenomena occurring in storms.

"Typical of this spectacular phenomenon is the giant lightning that forms off the coast of Africa," Fullekrug said. "The giant lightning is very rare. It can be in 10 or even 100 malformed lightning rays, there is only one ray combined with green lightning to form giant lightning".

Brilliant aurora with purple and green light strips in the sky of Vatnajokull, Iceland.(Photo: Dr. Juerg Alean / SPL)

The strips of light are shaped with green, blue, red of aurora, forming colorful swirls at the two poles of the Earth. The aurora occurs when solar particles from the solar wind sweep through the Earth and interact with the Earth's magnetic field.

Solar particles slide along the magnetic field to the two poles. When coming to the high atmosphere, solar particles interact with the atmosphere and provide enough energy for gas molecules to release electrons, helping them glow with a range of colors.

"The aurora can have many shapes and structures, depending on the magnetosphere," said Charles Swenson, Utah State University, Logan, USA. "They can be arc-shaped, west-facing waves or any other name for observable shapes . " Earth is not the only planet with aurora.

" The necessary condition for the formation of aurora is that the solar wind blows through a planet with gas molecules and magnetic fields, " Swenson explained. Jupiter and Saturn also have very unique aurora, because the gas molecules in these two planets' atmosphere are different.

The aurora also includes an invisible element, which is the scientific topic Swenson has done. Particles that carry energy from the solar wind cause an electric current in the aurora, which is difficult to study on the ground. In early 2015, Swenson launched a rocket into the self-photometry to measure its invisible components.