What do we know about ball lightning

1. What are the fireballs?
2. Ball lightning behavior
3. Ball lightning scientifically
4. Near-scientific theories about ball lightning
5. What to do when meeting with ball lightning?

Fear of the person most often comes from ignorance. Few people are afraid of the usual lightning - spark electric discharge - and everyone knows how to behave during a thunderstorm. But what is fireball, is it dangerous, and what to do if you encounter this phenomenon?

What are the fireballs?

It is very easy to recognize ball lightning, despite the diversity of its types. Usually it has, as you can easily guess, the shape of a sphere, glowing like a 60-100 watt light bulb. Much less often there are lightnings similar to a pear, a mushroom or a drop, or such an exotic form as a pancake, bagel or lens. But the variety of colors is simply amazing: from transparent to black, but still leading shades of yellow, orange and red. Color can be non-uniform, and sometimes ball lightning change it like a chameleon.

Talking about the constant size of the plasma ball is also not necessary, it varies from a few centimeters to several meters. But usually people encounter ball lightning with a diameter of 10-20 centimeters.

The worst situation in the description of lightning is the case with their temperature and mass. According to scientists, the temperature can be in the range from 100 to 1000 oC. But at the same time, people faced with ball lightning at a distance of hands, rarely noted at least some heat emanating from them, although logically, they should have been burned. The same mystery is with the mass: what kind of lightning was not size, it weighs no more than 5-7 grams.

Ball lightning behavior

The behavior of ball lightning is unpredictable. They refer to the phenomena that appear when they want, where they want and they do what they want. So, before it was believed that fireballs are born only during thunderstorms and always accompany linear (regular) lightning. However, it gradually became clear that they could appear in sunny, clear weather. It was believed that lightning, as it were, "attracted" to high-voltage places with a magnetic field - electrical wires. But there were cases when they actually appeared in the middle of a clean field ...

Fireballs inexplicably eject from electrical outlets in the house and “seep through” through the slightest crevices in the walls and glass, turning into “sausages” and then again taking their usual form. At the same time there are no traces of melted ... They then quietly hang in one place at a short distance from the ground, then rush somewhere at a speed of 8-10 meters per second. Having met a person or an animal on their way, lightning can keep away from them and behave peacefully, they can curiously circle around, or they can attack and burn or kill, then melt away as if nothing had happened, or explode with a terrible roar. However, despite frequent stories of injured or killed by ball lightning, their number is relatively small - only 9 percent. Most often, lightning, circling around the area, disappears without causing any harm. If she appeared in the house, she usually “backs out” back into the street and melts there only.

There are also many unexplained cases where fireballs are “attached” to a particular place or person, and appear regularly. At the same time, in relation to a person, they are divided into two types - those who attack him in each of their appearance and those who do not harm or attack people in the vicinity. There is another mystery: ball lightning, killing a person, completely without any trace on the body, and the corpse does not become numb and decompose for a long time ... Some scientists say that lightning simply "stops time" in the body.

Ball lightning scientifically

Ball lightning is a unique and peculiar phenomenon. Over the history of mankind has accumulated more than 10 thousand testimonials of meetings with "intelligent balls". However, until now, scientists can not boast of great achievements in the field of research of these objects. There is a mass of disparate theories about the origin and "life" of ball lightning. From time to time in the laboratory it turns out to create objects that look like plasmonoids in appearance and properties similar to ball lightning. Nevertheless, no one could provide a coherent picture and a logical explanation for this phenomenon.

The most famous and developed earlier than others is the theory of academician P. L. Kapitsa, which explains the appearance of ball lightning and its certain features by the appearance of short-wave electromagnetic oscillations in the space between the thunderclouds and the earth's surface. However, Kapitsa was never able to explain the nature of those very short-wave oscillations. In addition, as noted above, ball lightning does not necessarily accompany ordinary lightning and may appear in clear weather. However, most other theories are based on the findings of Academician Kapitsa.

The hypothesis different from Kapitsa's theory was created by B. Smirnov, who asserted that the core of the ball lightning is a cellular structure that has a strong skeleton with low weight, and the skeleton was created from plasma filaments.

D. Turner explains the nature of ball lightning by thermochemical effects occurring in a saturated water vapor in the presence of a sufficiently strong electric field.

For official science, ball lightning is still a mystery. Maybe that's why there are so many pseudoscientific theories around her and even more inventions.

Near-scientific theories about ball lightning

We will not tell stories about demons with burning eyes, leaving behind the smell of sulfur, hellish dogs and "fire birds", as sometimes represented fireballs. However, their strange behavior makes many researchers of this phenomenon assume that lightning “thinks”. At a minimum, fireballs are considered instruments for exploring our world. As a maximum - energy entities, which also collect some information about our planet and its inhabitants.
An indirect confirmation of these theories can be the fact that any collection of information is work with energy.

And the unusual property of lightning to fade in one place and appear instantly in another. There are suggestions that the same ball lightning “dives” into a certain part of space - a different dimension, living according to different physical laws - and, dropping information, it appears again in our world at a new point. And the actions of lightning on the living beings of our planet are also meaningful - they don’t touch some, touch others, and some simply pull out pieces of flesh, as if for genetic analysis!

It is easy to explain and the frequent occurrence of ball lightning during thunderstorms. During bursts of energy - electrical discharges - portals are opened from a parallel dimension, and their collectors of information about our world get into our world ...

What to do when meeting with ball lightning?

The main rule in the appearance of ball lightning - whether in the apartment or on the street - do not panic and do not make sudden movements. Do not run anywhere! Lightning is very susceptible to air turbulence, which we create when running and other movements and which pull it along. Break away from ball lightning is possible only by car, but not by its own power.

Try to quietly turn away from the path of the lightning and keep away from it, but do not turn your back to it. If you are in an apartment - go to the window and open the window. With a high probability, the lightning will fly out.

And, of course - never throw anything at the fireball! It can not just disappear, but explode like a mine, and then the grave consequences (burns, injuries, sometimes loss of consciousness and cardiac arrest) are inevitable.

If the fireball touched someone and the person lost consciousness, then it must be moved to a well-ventilated room, it must be wrapped up warmly, artificial respiration must be performed and an ambulance must be called.

In general, technical means of protection against ball lightning as such has not yet been developed. The only existing "ball rotor" was developed by the leading engineer of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering B. Ignatov. Ignatov's ball rover has been patented, but such devices have been created - units, there is no talk of actively introducing it into life.

A source - MirSovetov