Attempts to create ball lightning with triggered lightning

We describe attempts to create ball lightning by directing lightning, triggered from natural thunderclouds using the rocket-and-wire technique, through a variety of materials. Some of the observed phenomena have features in common with natural ball lightning or with laboratory attempts to create it:...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of atmospheric and solar-terrestrial physics Vol. 72; no. 13; pp. 913 - 925
Main Authors Hill, Jonathan D., Uman, Martin A., Stapleton, Michael, Jordan, Douglas M., Chebaro, Alexander M., Biagi, Christopher J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.08.2010
Elsevier
Subjects
Atmospheric electricity
Ball lightning
Earth, ocean, space
Electrical discharges
Exact sciences and technology
External geophysics
Lightning
Physics of the ionosphere
Physics of the magnetosphere
Triggered lightning
Ball lightning
Triggered lightning
Electrical discharges
Lightning
Atmospheric electricity
Thundercloud
Luminosity
Gravity
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Summary:We describe attempts to create ball lightning by directing lightning, triggered from natural thunderclouds using the rocket-and-wire technique, through a variety of materials. Some of the observed phenomena have features in common with natural ball lightning or with laboratory attempts to create it: flame-like luminosity for up to 0.5 s above salt water; constant-luminosity silicon fragments falling for about 1 s under the influence of gravity; a 0.7 m region of stationary luminosity whose bottom was 0.3 m above a stainless steel surface to which arcing had occurred; and a glow for about 0.5 s above pine tree sections.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:1364-6826
1879-1824
DOI:10.1016/j.jastp.2010.04.009