#electrical discharge

[wikipediapictures]

Plasma-filaments

“Z-pinches constrain the plasma filaments in an electrical discharge from a Tesla coil.” - via Wikimedia Commons

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electrical discharge patterns

[wayti-blog]

"Mysterious will-o’-the-wisps ignited by microlightning"

"Electrical discharge from microscopic bubbles offers a new explanation for fleeting flames of folklore"

(Hermann Hendrich’s 1901 mural shows will-o’-the-wisps dancing with an eerie blue light. Picture Art Collection via Alamy)

"The eerie phenomenon has been said to be dancing bones, the hovering souls of dead children, and ghost lights meant to confuse travelers. For hundreds of years, folklore has sought to explain the will-o’-the-wisp, the fleeting flames occasionally seen above swamps and graveyards in the dark of night. Scientists have long suspected the flickers arise from flammable methane gas produced by decaying organic matter. But it’s been unclear how this gas could catch fire. Now, new research suggests that tiny lightning bursts jumping between microscopic bubbles can spark the phenomena, sometimes also called a jack-o’-lantern.

“This is really an interesting step forward,” says James Anderson, a chemist at Harvard University. “It reveals a mechanism by which chemical reactions can be initiated.” Anderson says the power of microbubbles to trigger reactions could also help explain how essential biomolecules formed prior to the dawn of life. The work is published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(In an experimental setup, high-speed cameras captured microlightning flashes (lower middle) occurring between microscopic air and methane bubbles in water. Richard N. Zare)

In recent years, Richard Zare, a chemist at Stanford University, and his colleagues have studied how tiny bubbles, just nanometers to micrometers in size, can generate strong electric fields, sparking reactions. When bubbles of different sizes form at the interface between water and air, charges on their surfaces separate, with negative charges accumulating on smaller bubbles, leaving larger ones more positively charged. This creates electric fields across small distances that trigger what amounts to bursts of microlightning as the charges attempt to equalize.

Zare wondered whether these electrical outbursts could explain the will-o’-the-wisp of lore. To find out, Zare’s team designed a machine with a submerged nozzle that blew microbubbles of methane and air into water. High-speed cameras then caught tiny light flashes as bubbles collided."

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Electrical Discharge, 1909.⠀⁠ ⠀⁠ Illustrative diagram depicting electrical discharge — the release and transmission of electricity in an applied electric field through a medium such as a gas — published by the German publishing company Bibliographisches Institut.⁠

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Electrical discharges given off by the leaves of plants during a thunderstorm can significantly alter the surrounding air quality.

(Image credit: Shutterstocks)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

A detailed 3D study of a massive electrical discharge that rose 50 miles into space above an Oklahoma thunderstorm has provided new information about an elusive atmospheric phenomenon known as gigantic jets. The Oklahoma discharge was the most powerful gigantic jet studied so far, carrying 100 times as much electrical charge as a typical thunderstorm lightning bolt. The gigantic jet moved an estimated 300 coulombs of electrical charge into the ionosphere—the lower edge of space—from the thunderstorm. 

Typical lightning bolts carry less than five coulombs between the cloud and ground or within clouds. The upward discharge included relatively cool (approximately 400ºF) streamers of plasma, as well as structures called leaders that are very hot—more than 8,000ºF. "We were able to map this gigantic jet in three dimensions with really high-quality data," said Levi Boggs, a research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and the paper's corresponding author. "We were able to see very high frequency (VHF) sources above the cloud top, which had not been seen before with this level of detail. Using satellite and radar data, we were able to learn where the very hot leader portion of the discharge was located above the cloud."

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Kirlian Photography

1st photographs

[dame-de-pique]

John Kuehne (1872 - 1960) - Two prints depicting the negative charge of electrity discharged from a Leyden jar.