by Scientists say that they finally solved the secret of what happens shortly before lightning strikes.
While the famous inventor and the US founding father Benjamin Franklin discovered the connection between lightning and electricity in 1752, experts had still not fully understood the trip from the cloud 270 years later.
“Our results provide the first precise, quantitative explanation for how Lightning initiates in nature,” said Victor Pasko, Professor of Electrical Engineering at Penn State School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, in a statement in which the results were announced. “It combines the points between X -rays, electrical fields and the physics of electron avalanches.”
So what’s going on with the atmospheric processes that trigger the huge, explosive sparks of electricity that can heat the air five times hotter than the surface of the sun?
According to Pasko and his team, the mighty chain reaction works similarly to an invisible pinball machine. In the storm clouds, strong electrical fields accelerate electrons that plunge into molecules such as nitrogen and oxygen. The reactions create electromagnetic radiation, which is generally known as X -rays, as well as even more electrons and energetic photons. Photons are the basic particles made of light. Then the flash screws are born.
The secret behind the birth of the flash of Thundercloud was solved. Scientists say that it was born from a powerful chain reaction in our atmosphere (AFP via Getty Images)
Flash can heat the atmosphere on the five times as hot as the surface of the sun. That is around 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (AFP via Getty Images)
Atmospheric scientists knew how invited particles react in clouds. The protons rise and electrons go to the ground, which leads to a positive electric load building on the ground. If this positive load “concerns” the negative negative cargo and combine the channels, the electrical transfer is as a flash according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In order to achieve these new conclusions, the international authors used mathematical modeling and simulated the physical conditions under which a flash is likely to come.
“We explained how photoelectric events appear, which conditions have to be in Thunderclouds to initiate the electron cascade, and what causes the multitude of radio signals that we all observe in clouds before a lightning strike,” said Zaid Pervez, a doctoral student in the electrical engineering. “In order to confirm our explanation of Lightning initiation, I have referred to our results with previous modeling, observation studies and my own work on a kind of lightning, a compact intercloud discharge, which normally appear in small, localized regions in Thunderclouds.”
Victor Pasko, left, professor of electrical engineering at Penn State School for electrical engineering and computer science, and Zaid Pervez, a doctoral student in electrical engineering, discovered the chain reaction that triggers lightning. They also examined what is known as “dark flash” (Caleb Craig / Penn State)
They also wanted to explain observations of the so -called “dark lightning” or a terrestrial gamma ray flash.
The invisible X -rays consist of the flashes that are made in our atmosphere. They are often produced without flashes of light and radio burdens that are familiar lightning in stormy weather. The researchers wanted to know why.
“In our modeling, the energetic X -rays generated by relativistic electron avalanches create new seed electrons, which are powered by the photoelectric effect in the air and quickly strengthen these avalanches,” said Pasko.
“This chain reaction, which is out of control, can not only be produced in very compact volumes, but can also occur with very variable starch, which often leads to demonstrable X-ray levels, while they are accompanied by very weak optical and radio emissions. This explains why these gamma ray flashes can emerge from source regions that appear dark and radio-quiet silence.”
The international study was published on Monday in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
