As the storm clouds are formed, where the world is most often sparks lightning and lightning killed one often – after a night and a morning thunderstorm in the Moscow region department of science “Gazety.Ru” says that modern science knows about the storm.
romance, for those who love the storm in early May or any other month, it would be appropriate to recall that the storm will not only cleanse the atmosphere and ozonizes surrounding reality, but can be a destroyer, and even a killer. Although from a scientific point of view, it’s just a more or less well-studied natural phenomenon, defined as high-power electrical discharges in cumulonimbus clouds, followed by a flash of light (lightning) and sharp bursts of sound (thunder).
Lightning – a giant spark
Thunder have their own classification. Scientists divide them into single-cell, multicell line, multicell cluster, and – the most dangerous – sverhmnogoyacheechnye. Emerging during lightning storms do not have a special classification (if not to take into account the mysterious fireballs), but the process of occurrence of electrical discharges and their parameters are also explored, seemingly quite well.
In fact, the lightning – it’s just a giant spark occurs either within the electrified thunderstorm cloud, or between it and the Earth. The length of the sparks sometimes reaches 10-20 km, the current flowing in its channel, tens and hundreds of kA and the voltage causing the discharge reaches tens of millions of volts. At high altitudes, even lightning can cause thermonuclear flash being monitored by a special satellite.
Who charges the clouds: the ice or space?
Despite the seeming simplicity of the process from the researchers to the lightning is still a lot of questions. For example, it is not clear the mechanism of formation of storm clouds and occurrence of lightning strikes. There are many versions responding to these questions, none of them is not without flaws, but most researchers agree that the main role is played here by convection – the movement of air masses. It is common, for example, the version explaining the electrification of the clouds small pieces of ice inside it, move quickly, colliding with each other and with the water droplets and thus electrostatically charged each other.
But none of the existing version does not explain how the storm cloud grows and how the formation of lightning discharges.
Perhaps the answer to these questions lies in the theory proposed by Russian physicists from FIAN , at which the catalyst is a lightning cosmic radiation. According to this theory, particles of cosmic radiation in the near-light speed colliding with air molecules, ionizes it, knocking it out of the high-energy electrons. In turn, they ionize the path of their movement, drawing an avalanche of electrons moving to the land and creating a channel for the discharge.
It is interesting that from observations it is known that lightning in the clouds occur at electric field strengths not exceeding 3 kilovolts per centimeter, while at the altitudes breakdown voltage of the air is 10 times more.
Kills mostly men
Despite the seeming simplicity of the process from the researchers to the lightning is still a lot of questions. For example, there is no clear answer to their gender preferences.
As you know, sometimes lightning kills. According to statistics, from a lightning strike in a year on Earth killed about 3 thousand. People. For example, during the current storm in Moscow killed a man. And the same statistics show that 70% of people killed by lightning – men. Why do so – the answer is no, although versions, of course, abound, as a “bait” suspect even testosterone.
And, perhaps, the number of victims will increase with time. Last fall, the journal Science published an article by a group of climate scientists at Berkeley, who claim that global warming multiplies the number of lightning and that if global warming is not finished by the end of the century this number will increase to 50%. In this sense, several consoles recently reported that in fact, global warming remains to be short-lived and that in twenty years or thirty earth will begin to freeze.
Most lightning place
Another mystery – lightning Lake Maracaibo in the north of Venezuela. This is the place of our planet lightning. Above the lake the lightning hitting almost constantly. Night storms are here 260 days a year, creating 280 lightnings per hour. According to other estimates, each square kilometer of the lake and its marshy shores annually hits 180 Lightning. Lightning hitting mostly in the evening and four o’clock in the morning, so that local residents do not need in the night lights.
Why lightning chosen for their rampage is this lake, no one knows.
Lightning instead of “Buka” and nuclear bomb
But research continuing, and we hope that over time all the secrets of lightning are solved. Moreover, there is a suspicion that in the end people will even be able to tame lightning. Today, winding road that traces the lightning in the sky, completely unpredictable. However, last month the journal Science Advances published an article of French physicists led by Prof. Roberto Moradotti who devised a way to direct the path of the electric discharge by means of an ingenious system of lasers. Scientists say that they sent electrical discharges can even avoid obstacles.
Today, it can be perceived fiction, but if such a laser technology or other more advanced technology of the future to apply to lightning and beat a path to it, then it will be possible not only to save the forest from fire and people from attacks, but also to make lightning guided weapons, from which lightning rods will not be saved.
No comments:
Post a Comment