Basic types of lightning

The most common lightning is linear lightning, which is some very bright white, pink or light blue lines. It looks like a river with many branches on the map, and it hangs in the sky like a winding tree. Scientists have long known the "temper" of linear lightning. The whole process of linear lightning can be completely recorded by continuous high-speed camera, and the simulation experiment can be successfully carried out in the laboratory.

In addition to linear lightning, there are spherical lightning and chain lightning, both of which are relatively rare.

Spherical lightning often occurs in bad weather of strong thunderstorm. A fireball suddenly appeared in the sky after the linear lightning. Fireballs float around in the sky along winding paths, and sometimes they may stop and hang in the air. This kind of fireball likes to drill holes, and sometimes it rushes into the house through chimneys, windows and cracks in the door, and then slips out of the house.

Compared with spherical lightning, chain lightning is more difficult to find. At present, people only know that it also appears after linear lightning and appears on the same path as linear lightning. It hangs in the sky like a row of luminous hammer balls, and slides slowly on the cloud curtain like a dotted line against the cloud.

Lightning has a great influence on human activities, especially buildings and transmission lines, which may cause serious losses. The most practical way to protect buildings from lightning stroke is to install lightning arresters (lightning rods) to guide the electricity in lightning to a pre-selected safe area on the ground.

Linear lightning, strip lightning, flake lightning, rocket lightning, ball lightning and bead lightning will all do harm to human beings, so you can't go out.

What we usually see is linear lightning, just like a branch with many branches and twists and turns. Band lightning is similar to linear lightning, but the bright channel is wider and looks like a bright band. Spherical lightning usually occurs after linear lightning. It is a fireball with a diameter of about 20 cm, emitting red or orange light, and occasionally emitting beautiful green, usually lasting for several seconds. Fireballs drift in the air with the wind, like to slide along the edge of objects, and can enter the room through gaps. When they are about to disappear, there will be a deafening explosion.

Among all kinds of lightning, the rarest is the combined bead lightning, which most people in the world have never seen. This kind of lightning is shaped like a string of glowing pearls extending from the cloud to the ground (1916 On May 8, 2006, bead lightning appeared over a bell tower in Dresden, Germany, and was recorded. People first saw a linear lightning falling from the cloud; Later, people saw that the channel of linear lightning widened and the color changed from white to yellow. Soon the lightning channel gradually darkened, but the whole channel did not darken evenly at the same time, so the bright channel became a string of pearl-like bright spots hanging on the clouds, which was beautiful and moving. It is estimated that there are 32 bright beads, each with a diameter of 5 meters. After that, the bright beads gradually shrink and become round in shape; Finally, the brightness gets darker and darker, and then it goes out completely. ) Because the probability of this kind of lightning is very small and its duration is very short, people have little research on the causes of this kind of lightning, and the reasons for its formation are still unclear.

Linear lightning

The difference between linear lightning and other lightning is that its current intensity is particularly large, reaching tens of thousands of amperes on average and 200,000 amperes in a few cases. Such a large current intensity will destroy and shake trees and sometimes hurt people. When it comes into contact with buildings, it often causes "lightning strike" and fire. Linear lightning is mostly cloud-to-ground discharge.

Flake lightning

Flake lightning is also a common lightning shape. It looks as if there is a flash of light on the cloud. This kind of lightning may be the background light of the invisible spark discharge behind the cloud, or the diffuse light generated by the lightning in the cloud being blocked by the cloud droplets, or it may be a cluster or flickering independent discharge phenomenon appearing in the upper part of the cloud.

Global illumination

Spherical lightning is a form of lightning, also known as spherical lightning, which is often called rolling thunder by the people. This is a very rare lightning shape, but it is the most striking. It is like a fireball, and sometimes it is like a blooming hydrangea. It is about the size of a human head, and occasionally it is several meters or even dozens of meters in diameter. Spherical lightning sometimes swims slowly in the air, and sometimes it hangs completely still in the air. It sometimes emits white light, and sometimes it emits pink light like a meteor. Ball lightning likes to drill holes. Sometimes, it can enter the house through chimneys, windows and cracks, turn around the house and then slip away. Ball lightning sometimes hisses and then disappears with a muffled sound; Sometimes it just makes a faint crack and disappears unconsciously. After the ball lightning disappears, some unpleasant gas smoke may be left in the air, which is a bit like ozone. The average diameter of spherical lightning is 25 cm, most of them are between 10 and 100 cm, the smallest is only 0.5 cm, and the largest is several meters. Spherical lightning occasionally has a ring or blue halo extending outward from the center, emitting sparks or rays. Common colors are orange or red. When it appears with particularly bright glare, you can also see yellow, blue and green. Its life span is only 1 ~ 5 seconds, and it can reach several minutes at the longest.

The walking route of spherical lightning generally falls directly from the sky, and suddenly changes direction and moves horizontally when approaching the ground; Some suddenly appear on the ground and bend forward; There are also those that roll along the surface and rotate rapidly; The speed of motion is often 1 ~ 2 meters per second. It can enter the building through doors and windows, usually through chimneys. It can even slide on the wire and sometimes make a "buzzing" sound. Most fireballs disappear silently, and some will explode when they disappear, which will cause damage and even collapse buildings, causing human and animal deaths. People will have an amazing explosion when they meet something, producing a pungent smell, causing casualties, fires and other accidents.

The way to prevent ball lightning is to close doors and windows in thunderstorm weather to avoid direct flow. If you encounter a floating "fireball", avoid it gently and never touch it.

Scientists speculate that spherical lightning is a gas vortex produced at the sharp turn of lightning path, which is a gas mixture with high charge, mainly composed of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and a small amount of water. It usually happens after dendritic lightning, and it seems that dendritic lightning is a necessary condition to produce spherical lightning. Ball lightning is rare, so it is very difficult to study, and it is still a mystery in nature.

band lightning

Strip lightning consists of multiple continuous discharges. Between each lightning, due to the influence of the wind, the lightning path moves, making each individual lightning close to each other and forming a strip. The belt width is about 10 meter. If this lightning strikes a house, it will immediately cause a large area to burn.

Beaded lightning

Beaded lightning looks like a connecting line that slides on the cloud curtain or throws it to the ground through the clouds, and it also looks like a sparkling pearl necklace. Some people think that bead lightning seems to be a transitional form from linear lightning to spherical lightning. Beaded lightning often follows linear lightning with almost no time interval.

Rocket lightning

Rocket lightning is much slower than other kinds of lightning, and it takes L ~ 1.5 seconds to fully discharge. Its activities are easy to track and observe with the naked eye. race

Generally, lightning is mostly blue, red or white, but sometimes there are black lightning. Due to the action of sunlight, cloud electric field and some physical and chemical factors in the atmosphere, a particle with very active chemical properties will be produced in the sky. Under the action of electromagnetic field, these particles gather together to form many spheres. This ball will not give off energy, but it can exist for a long time. It has no light and is opaque, so it can only be observed during the day.

One thing is comforting: when you see lightning, it can't hit you.

The formation of black lightning is beyond the explanation of scientists. For a long time, people's minds only have blue and white lightning, which is a natural phenomenon of atmospheric discharge in the air, usually accompanied by dazzling light! I've never seen "black lightning" that doesn't shine. But through long-term observation and research, scientists have indeed proved the existence of "Black Lightning".

1On June 23rd, 974, chernov, an astronomer of the former Soviet Union, saw a "black lightning" in Zabarozh: at first it was a strong spherical lightning, and then a mass of black things flew behind, which looked like a foggy condensate. Research and analysis show that Black Lightning is produced by molecular aerogel aggregates, and these aggregates are hot and charged substances, which are easy to explode or transform into spherical lightning, which is extremely dangerous.

According to observation and research, Black Lightning is generally not easy to appear near the ground. If it appears, it is easy to hit trees, masts, houses and other metals. Generally, it is a lump or a lump. At first glance, it looks like a dirty thing, which is easily overlooked by people, but it contains a lot of energy. Therefore, it is a lightning family with great danger and harm. In particular, Black Lightning is small and difficult to be captured by radar; And it is very "favored" for metal objects; Therefore, it is called "aerial dark mine" by pilots. If the plane touches black lightning during the flight, the consequences are unimaginable. Whenever black lightning is close to the ground, it is easy to be mistaken for a bird or something else, which is not easy to arouse people's vigilance and attention; If you hit with a stick, it will explode quickly, and there is a danger of breaking people into pieces. In addition, Black Lightning is similar to spherical lightning, and general lightning protection facilities, such as lightning rods, lightning balls and lightning nets, cannot protect Black Lightning; Therefore, it often reaches the vicinity of oil storage tanks, gas storage tanks, transformers and explosives depots with extremely strict lightning protection measures. Don't go near it at this moment. Should be avoided, focusing on personal safety.

The reason for the formation of lightning is that the airflow in thunderstorm clouds will generate static electricity due to the friction and decomposition of water molecules. There are two kinds of electricity. One is that positively charged particles are positively charged, and the other is that negatively charged particles are negatively charged. Positive and negative charges attract each other, just like magnets. The positive charge is at the top of the cloud, and the negative charge attracts the positive charge on the ground at the bottom of the cloud. The air between the cloud and the ground is an insulator, which will prevent the current with bipolar charge from passing through. When the charge in the thunderstorm cloud and the charge on the ground become strong enough, these two parts of charge will break through the air barrier and contact to form strong current, positive charge and negative charge contact. When these opposite charges meet, neutralization (discharge) will occur. Strong charge neutralization will release a lot of light and heat, and these released light will form lightning.

Most lightning strikes will happen twice in a row. The first time it was called lead flash, it was an invisible air that went down to the place close to the ground. This charged air is like a wire, which establishes a guide for the second current. At the moment when the pilot approaches the ground, a tie-back current jumps up along this guide path, and the flash generated by this tie-back is the lightning we usually see.

Super lightning

Super lightning refers to those rare lightning whose power exceeds ordinary lightning 100 times. The electricity generated by ordinary lightning is about 1 megawatt, while the electricity generated by super lightning is at least 1 megawatt, and may even reach trillions to 1 megawatt.

Clock Island in Newfoundland was obviously struck by a super lightning at 1978. Even the houses at 13 km away rattled, and the windows and doors of the whole village were sprayed with blue flames.

Submarine lightning

There is also lightning at the bottom of the sea, which was discovered by scientists from the former Soviet Union at the bottom of Japan. Sensitive electric field instruments show that the frequency of submarine discharge is the same as that of lightning in the atmosphere, which puzzles scientists. Because according to the laws of hydrogeology, deep seawater has good conductivity, so it should be out of reach with Lei Gong Dian Mu.

After repeated experiments, scientists finally believe that the charge source actually comes from the air on the land near the coast, and then travels through rocks all the way to the bottom of the sea. However, with the increase of conduction distance, the amount of electricity gradually decreases. Therefore, the flow measured on the seabed is generally weak.

Purple lightning

The lightning generated by a single cloud system on the ground and near the earth is mostly blue-purple lightning, which is very thick and directly inserted into the ground. This is very destructive. In the sky, lightning generated by two or more cloud systems is mostly bright white or reddish light. In fact, lightning is an arc discharge, which emits white light and contains a lot of ultraviolet rays, so it gives people a purple feeling. The color of light is only a part, and red mainly comes from the chemical changes of some gases in the air under the action of strong light. Blue-white light that produces colored gas is light with different wavelengths seen by naked eyes. When the clouds move violently, the fire, that is, lightning, is very powerful. It ionizes air and produces violet light with short wavelength and high energy, and vice versa.

Red lightning

For decades, only pilots have been lucky enough to see this incredible natural phenomenon of red elves. Marko Korosec, a 32-year-old photographer from Sezana, Slovenia, tracked the storm for several months and finally successfully captured a rare red elf photo in a cornfield in Vivaro, Italy, 320 kilometers away. He said, "I've been trying to catch them for months. I am satisfied with the result. The details of the red elf in the photo are quite unforgettable. "

These rare luminaries are accompanied by thunderstorms, which occur at an altitude of more than 80 kilometers and last only a few milliseconds. This incredible flickering light is caused by the huge discharge of lightning in the air, and it gets a deep red tone in the process of colliding with nitrogen molecules in the air. People can see the red elves in the ionosphere D area. This area is just above the dense lower atmosphere, about 60 to 90 kilometers above the ground.