76 points by Tomte 2 days ago | 6 comments
nomilk 3 hours ago
That 7 second video of a small rocket shot into a cloud to induce a lightning strike (about half way down the article) is incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BJIiX9_c_M

Any ideas why the lightning strike appears mostly green (and momentarily purple and orange)?

postalcoder 15 minutes ago
Copper emits a green/blue light in the flame test https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwsexjcROH4
deepandmeaning 3 hours ago
I'm imagining it's something related to the copper wire.
teh_infallible 2 hours ago
I always wanted to replicate this with a helium balloon and a long, wet string coated with copper filings.
batch12 1 hour ago
You'd probably need a very large balloon to overcome the weight of the string
CamelCaseCondo 1 hour ago
Maybe just salt water and skip the filings?
joshikarthikey 18 minutes ago
Soooo you are telling me that we still haven't fully understood something as fundamental as lightning and it's still an active area of research...
nephihaha 3 minutes ago
Never mind this kind of lightning, it gets really interesting when we start to look at ball lightning, which is very real but rarely sighted.
fguerraz 1 hour ago
So, nothing new?

The cosmic ray hypothesis has been dominant for a few years now.

This magazine…

cinderelacinder 4 hours ago
[flagged]
freehorse 1 hour ago
Tl;dr lightings may be caused by electrons/positrons from outer space hitting a cloud and initiating an "avalanche" of electrons.
nephihaha 2 minutes ago
Much of the time they occur when two weather fronts of different temperatures collide with each other.
pfdietz 1 hour ago
Cosmic rays are mostly protons, not electrons or positrons. You're mixing up to separate theories in the article.
metalman 3 hours ago
just in case you missed it, all matter carrys a charge, and all space(and matter) has energy radiating through it, making the universe an energy gradient.

sometimes you can see it happening.