Ball lightning-like plasmoid generated in the lab
The rarest form of lightning, ball lightning, is hard to research given that it is believed to occur naturally only once in every million lightning strikes.
But researchers in Colorado have developed a more efficient way to produce a kind of ball lightning in the lab.
The team filmed its creations with video cameras, and high-speed schlerin imaging. The latter is a technique commonly used in the aerodynamics research, and allows a sensitive examination of changes in density.
Video courtesy of the US Air Force Academy
19 Aug 2013
- From the section Science & Environment