This article is from the magazine Les Indispensables de Sciences et Avenir n°210 dated July/September 2022.
This phenomenon is so unique that most scientists who study it have never had the chance to observe it in nature! However, ball lightning exists: many testimonies attest to it, relatively concordant, once dusted off from the beliefs inevitably summoned by the witness in front of this strange and sometimes terrifying luminous ballet. It generally manifests itself during a storm, in the form of small iridescent balls about ten centimeters in diameter, made up of a light that appears solid, like the plasma of a volcano. After evolving above the ground for a handful of seconds in a smell of sulphur, the spheres disintegrate in the air.
Inside a house, even without exit!
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This article is from the magazine Les Indispensables de Sciences et Avenir n°210 dated July/September 2022.
This phenomenon is so unique that most scientists who study it have never had the chance to observe it in nature! However, ball lightning exists: many testimonies attest to it, relatively concordant, once dusted off from the beliefs inevitably summoned by the witness in front of this strange and sometimes terrifying luminous ballet. It generally manifests itself during a storm, in the form of small iridescent balls about ten centimeters in diameter, made up of a light that appears solid, like the plasma of a volcano. After evolving above the ground for a handful of seconds in a smell of sulphur, the spheres disintegrate in the air.
Inside a house, even without exit!
Among the multiple theories evoked – mini-black holes forming in contact with the Earth, debris of antimatter or nuclear reactions caused by lightning – some do not seem totally far-fetched. In 2012, for example, an Australian team showed how ball lightning could appear inside a house, even without exit: following electromagnetic imbalances caused by a storm, flows of ions disturbed by these differences of voltage between interior and exterior accumulate on the surface of the windows, creating on the other side of the glass an electric field generating a ball of plasma of ions.
Photons ricocheting inside an air bubble?
Attractive… but it’s only a model. In 2019, the Russian Volume Vladimir Torchigin argued that ball lightning could be made up of photons ricocheting inside a bubble of compressed air resulting from the electric field generated by light rays. Intriguing… but, once again, it is only a physico-mathematical model. Ball lightning is not about to be captured.
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