Birth of lightning on video

Everyone has seen the lightning many times, but no one has not yet been observed in detail, how the emergence of lightning in a thundercloud.

Three years ago, the Spanish Physics Montagna Joan (Joan Montanyà) and Oscar van der Velde (Oscar van der Velde) from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain) set the high-speed camera in the valley of the Ebro River in northeast Spain in the hope to fix this physical phenomenon. September 9, 2012 they were lucky: he managed to make quality video at lightning speed 11019 frames / s.

For three years, scientists analyzed the video, and now finally published it in the public domain as the accompanying material to the scientific work in the journal Scientific Reports . In the article, they describe in detail the mechanism for the initiation of a bi-directional zippers. The video lasts 32 seconds, but it slowed down video of events that in reality lasted about 25 milliseconds.



Lightning Research Group Science at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia is studying lightning has более ten years . Colleagues call them "hunters lightning": the beginning of the storm Professor Montagnier and his colleagues go on his van, which is equipped with high-speed camera, high-energy particle detector, antenna and other equipment. Lightning - unpredictable natural phenomenon. The discharge may occur at any time, in any place, so the qualitative survey, which scientists failed in 2012, is so valuable.







In the published video can see the formation of electrical discharges in the electric field under the storm cloud. In the first seconds of video is formed leader - bright termoionizovanny channel with high conductivity. Approximately seven seconds negatively charged leader comes into contact with the positively charged wire electric discharge on the left side of the frame. At this point, the electrical resistance of the air can not withstand the electric field - and there is a bright flash of lightning. Here, the electrical energy is converted into heat, light and sound.





Authors of scientific work through the process of bi-growth leaders lightning. It corresponds to the theoretical model, which was first introduced Tungsten Kazemir Heinz (Heinz-Wolfram Kasemir) in 1960 and which was used for 3D-modeling of lightning in 2002-2010.

Source: geektimes.ru/post/264596/