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Science

Scientists Discover A New Kind Of Lightning 57

Posted by timothy from the zap-zap dept.
Exoman writes "Lightning that shoots upward up to 60 miles from the clouds? A team of researchers led by Han-Tzong Su of the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, videotaped the discharges last July from an observatory on the southern tip of the island. The lightning was firing from the top of thunderclouds more than 300 miles away across the South China Sea. The researchers reported their work Thursday in the journal Nature."
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Scientists Discover A New Kind Of Lightning More

Scientists Discover A New Kind Of Lightning

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  • There are some pictures and video available at Nature.com - http://www.nature.com/nsu/020311/020311-6.html

    • Gigantic Optical Jets are not Blue jets (Score:5, Informative)

      by barakn ( 641218 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2003 @09:16PM (#6299318)
      The link in the parent post is to an old paper on blue jets. The newest form of lightning is certainly not a blue jet. To quote:

      One, called blue jets, also streams upward but does not rise as high or spread over as wide an area as the giant jets in the new study.

      Here is a link [nature.com] to the two articles in the most recent Nature, though w/out a site license or subscription all you can see is the first paragraph [nature.com] of the paper by Su et al.

  • This has been observed a lot before (Score:3, Informative)

    by missing000 ( 602285 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2003 @06:31PM (#6298329)
    Most notably, 19 times from space [nasa.gov].
    • Yeah. There was a special on lightning on the discovery channel like 5 years ago that talked about (and showed) this.

    • Seems to be something new (Score:5, Informative)

      by isn't my name ( 514234 ) <.moc.htroneerht. .ta. .hsals.> on Wednesday June 25, 2003 @07:43PM (#6298820)
      The nasa page the parent points to seems to be describing red sprites, first photographic evidence in 1988/1989. This looks to be something different.

      From the article:

      Other types of high-altitude lightning events also have been documented in the past decade using high-flying planes and cameras carried aboard the space shuttle fleet. One, called blue jets, also streams upward but does not rise as high or spread over as wide an area as the giant jets in the new study.

      Red sprites, another form of high-altitude lightning, travel downward toward clouds but appear to stop short of reaching the top of thunderclouds.

      Su noted that while the other types of jets seem to occur over most parts of the world, the six gigantic optical jets observed so far have all been connected to thunderstorms over the open sea.

      Also, from the Wired article [wired.com]:

      Scientists had found plenty of evidence of sprites in the 1990s, but the larger, upward streaming lightning jets had escaped detection -- possibly because they may only occur over oceans, Inan said.

  • Found a good image here (Score:5, Informative)

    by mike_lynn ( 463952 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2003 @06:47PM (#6298434)
    Found their site (please be nice) and dug around enough to find a decent image of what this kind of lightning looks like.
    Check for yourself here [ncku.edu.tw].
    I gotta say, I'd think it was the end of the world if I saw something like this on a regular basis.

    • but not the right kind.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by barakn ( 641218 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2003 @10:23PM (#6299691)
      Yes, they are nice images, but oddly enough I found the same images [ncku.edu.tw] in the same directory without the annoying lettering. The lettering tipped me off to the fact that the images were the front cover of an issue of Geophysical Research Letters from last year (a pdf copy [ncku.edu.tw] can be found in the same directory). The images are of a type of sprite known as a carrot, although the top one could be columniform.
    • The parent is posting a picture of LAVA. Hence the label of the picture stating GEOPHYSICAL. Christ people. Giving out mod points like candy. Mod him -1 troll.
      • Geophysics includes atmospheric phenomena. Idiot.
        • Geophysics includes atmospheric phenomena. Idiot.

          While you replied to the parent of the same post I did, it appears your problem is with my post, as I am the one who mentioned the article in Geophysical Research Letters. I never claimed atmospheric phenomena weren't geophysical. I was pointing out that the images linked in the parent and the article they came from were not of the newly discovered gigantic optical jets, but of already fairly well studied sprites. So who's the idiot?

        • Doh..... I wasn't the idiot you were referring to, but apparently I am an idiot. Detritus [slashdot.org] is the bestest poster ever, and you can quote me on that. Mod my previous post to same parent and the parent's parent down, please. Nothing nests right unless I browse at -1. That sucks.
  • I thought I'd seen this on Discovery or such a long time ago, they were called sprites when I saw them. Is this something different?

  • Quick! (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by ShieldW0lf ( 601553 )
    Patent it!!!

  • NPR had a great series called "Lost and Found Sound", one episode had the sounds of the Northern Lights, and lightning. Sounds of the Northern Lights [npr.org]

  • But I thought... (Score:3, Redundant)

    by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2003 @10:40PM (#6299762) Homepage
    The conventional ground-to-cloud lightning bolts occur because thunderstorms build up huge surpluses of negatively charged particles near the bottom of clouds while objects on the ground collect a surge of positive charges that eventually come together in a bolt.

    Erm, so are they saying that current now flows from a positively charged source to negative one?

    Man, I can't keep up.

    • Re:But I thought... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Current is actually defined as a flow of positive charge. In most systems it is the electrons that flow (mostly because they are so small), but there are many sytems where the charge carriers are positive; in some materials, charge is transported by "holes" which are positively charged.

    • Re:But I thought... (Score:2, Informative)

      by EEGeek ( 183888 )
      Current flows from a negative source to a positive source... opposites attract, and since electrons are free (for the most part they can be though of as a "soup"), they flow to the positively charged particles. I'm not sure what charge the ground and the clouds have, but I think its the opposite I recall a debate about it in the 80's and 90's, and I recall the conclusion being that lightning goes from the ground to the cloud, and its just an illusion that it goes the other way, they used cameras with extre
      • That is what I had thought, but the article had stated the opposite (ground +ve, clouds -ve).

        Misquote by the reporter, perhaps.

        • There's 3 types of lightning: Cloud to ground, ground to cloud, and cloud to cloud. I guess you can figure out which has the positive and negative charge if, as stated above, charge flows from - to +.
          • I believe cloud to ground and ground to cloud are the same thing, namely, cloud and ground both to midpoint. However, while most lightning comes from negatively-charged clouds some also comes from positively-charged (areas of the) clouds. It's these bolts that tend to be associated with sprites.
            • Yes, you are correct. The distinction comes from which side of the equation (cloud or ground) has which charge.

              On an interesting side note, if you can find some slow-motion video of a lightning strike (which is probably out there somewhere, they had it on the Discovery Channel a few times) look for the little "streamers" (I think that's the term). The small branches of electricity that come up from the target. When the main bolt hits one of them, it connects to the ground and you have the main strike (BIG

          • Re:But I thought... (Score:4, Funny)

            by warpSpeed ( 67927 ) <slashdot@fredcom.com> on Thursday June 26, 2003 @01:44PM (#6304432) Homepage Journal
            There's 3 types of lightning: Cloud to ground, ground to cloud, and cloud to cloud. I guess you can figure out which has the positive and negative charge if, as stated above, charge flows from - to +.
            --
            There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't

            Wouldn't that be 11 types of lightning?

      • In a wire it is certainly true that the electrons that are carrying the current, but in a plasma either species can be current carriers. In a lightning bolt the atmosphere is ionized so the electrons will want to move one way and the positive ions the other way.

    • Re:But I thought... (Score:3, Redundant)

      by guybarr ( 447727 )

      disclaimer: IANASSP (solid-state-phys.)

      The convention is that current flows from + to - .

      This convemntion was set before it was found electrons are current conductors, and they actually flow from - to + , of course.

      That being said, I must add that AFAIK electrical current in metals can also carried by positive "holes" in the electron sea, which flow from + to - .

      Wether such a description can be used in gasous/plasma environment I'm not sure.

      • This convention was set before it was found electrons are current conductors, and they actually flow from - to + , of course.

        ment to say current carriers, of course.

      • Re:But I thought... (Score:3, Informative)

        by norton_I ( 64015 )
        Yes. When someone says current flows from A to B, they (usually) mean 'positive current'. And usually, it doesn't matter. Usually (always? I don't remeber that class very well), electrons are the majority carrier in metals, but in semiconductors it can be either way.

        >Wether such a description can be used in >gasous/plasma environment I'm not sure.

        For sure, in plasma physics, both types of carriers are very important, though in this case it is electrons and ions, rather than holes.
        • For sure, in plasma physics, both types of carriers are very important, though in this case it is electrons and ions, rather than holes.

          Well, I know about ions in plasma. I was refering to a possible holes-in-electron-field description. Wether such a description exists, or is in any way useful, I do not know.

          For solid state, the holes are the electronic eigen-functions left unoccupied in the conductance band. For plasma I do not see an analogical model. But that does not mean there isn't any.

          (And alth

    • Re:But I thought... (Score:3, Informative)

      by CXI ( 46706 )
      Here's a link which does a good job of giving a general overview of how lightning works:

      http://wvlightning.com/cgdesc.html [wvlightning.com]

    • Erm, so are they saying that current now flows from a positively charged source to negative one?

      If there is a positively charged object and a negatively charged object, they exert an equal attractive force on each other, right?

      F = ma, or: a = F/m. The heavier the object, the slower it will accelerate due to the force.

      Now, in a wire, the negatively charged electrons are significantly lighter than the positively charged nuclei they've detactched from. So it's the electrons that move in an electrical cir

      • Re:But I thought... (Score:2, Informative)

        by Sir Holo ( 531007 ) *
        Discalimer: IAASSP (I AM a solid state physicist)

        Please ignore the parent of this post (the one with F=ma, etc.). If you've got some mod points, please mod it down, or at least label it as "Funny" because just about everything in it is dead WRONG.

        Going over all the made-up physics would just waste space. Please mod it down! (and me up) :-P
        • Or mod the parent of this one was incomplete... care to explain what I got wrong?

          Sure, it's a little simple, but it presents, at a high-school physics level, the explanation. If you've got a better one (at the same level, not the college post-grad one), feel free.
        • ...and I see this message attached to a 5:Informative comment. I'm supposed to mod it down as overrated on the basis of the say so of a nick that says Sir Holo who claims to be a Solid State physicist?

          If the poster is full of shit, explain his errors. Becuase otherwise, I have no basis to accept your words over his.
      • The reason why electrons (instead of nuclei) move in metals has nothing to do with relative accelerations. In a solid, the nuclei are fixed in place. They don't generate a positive electrical current at all, and the "equal and opposite" argument of the poster doesn't apply. (The fastenings on the wire take up the infinitesimal acceleration due to momentum change of the electrons.)

        The poster is wrong again about "charged ions" (by which he should mean plasma). Plasma isn't a solid; both species (positive

  • columbia (Score:3, Interesting)

    by qed123 ( 658353 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @12:57AM (#6300291)
    The last time I heard about weird electical lightning formations was when they were throwing around ideas and someone had a suspiscious picture.

    from space.com [space.com]
    While it's not likely Columbia was struck by lightning flying through clear skies some 40 miles high, it is possible that some kind of electrical event took place. At least one image is reported to exist in which it appears something like lightning is striking, or discharging from, the shuttle as it approached the California coast.

    Also a little more detail in this article [virtuallystrange.net].

    I never heard anything else so apparantly they decided that the picture was fake or irrelevant, I guess. I wasn't able to find any more current info.

  • Finally, images of gigantic optical jets (Score:5, Informative)

    by barakn ( 641218 ) on Thursday June 26, 2003 @02:05PM (#6304655)
    I don't read Chinese, so it was difficult. Here are some colorized images [ncku.edu.tw] superimposed on fanciful daytime scenes from this page [ncku.edu.tw]. The original [ncku.edu.tw] images [ncku.edu.tw] are not in color, and they come from this mostly illegible (to me) page [ncku.edu.tw]. Most of the other images appear to be of sprites. I'm not certain how they know the tops are red and the bottoms are blue.
  • Lightning creates the ozone, right? I'm no ozonelogist to say the least, but if someone is I am sort of curious... Does this mean anything in regards to the ozone layer?

    • Re:A question (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Chatmag ( 646500 )
      Lightning does create an upper atmosphere layer of ozone, which is beneficial. Without it, we'd fry.

      Carbon monoxide (fossil fuel burning, auto emissions, that MickieD you ate) creates a layer of ozone at the surface of the earth, which cannot go into the upper atmosphere, and is harmful.
  • Isn't this the lightning that we've been seeing from space for over 30 years? Come on. Figure out how to make your own lightning, then we'll fund your damn salary and expensive cameras.
  • Students at the chinese university had the camera upsidedown!

    ack

  • This is in the 'propaganda' pictures. (Score:3, Informative)

    by mrmeval ( 662166 ) <.moc.oohay. .ta. .lavemcj.> on Saturday June 28, 2003 @11:24PM (#6322984) Journal
    One is called burning tree and is quite unique. This is a tree like discharge appearing to hover above the ground.

    http://www.astronet.ru:8100/db/x/msg/1170947

    I don't think its new.

  • Bad News For Geosynchronous Cables? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If atmospheric conditions are dependant on these 6,000 cubic kilometer lightning events, wouldn't stringing an orbital elevator cable from the surface of the earth up through the ionosphere have undesirable environmental effects? Would it even be possible to string a cable of any material from the surface through the ionosphere without having a significant ongoing effect on these types of discharges?

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