14 DAY TRIAL // A group of physicists from the Florida Institute of Technology (Florida Tech) recently managed a breakthrough in this field of research, when they were able to collect the first-ever 3D images of a lightning strike. This has never been done before.
In addition to being able to snap images in the X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, the new camera is also capable of capturing as much as 10 million frames per second.
This enables it to have a temporal resolution of as much as several millionths of a second. Scientists say that these traits make the refrigerator-sized instrument incredibly accurate in conducting the new observations.
Once the camera was constructed, the scientists installed it alongside a rocket launch tower, and then began sending small rockets into the atmosphere, with a copper wire trailing behind.
This Ben Franklin-like experiment allowed them to channel the force of lightning into the launch tower, and also straight into the X-ray cam's field of view.
“It's been 250 years since Franklin's kite experiment, and only within the last decade [eight years ago] we found that lightning emits X-rays,” explains Florida Tech physicist Joseph Dwyer, who was a member of the team that conducted the research.
The images have already been showcased by the researchers at the 2010 annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The workshop took place in San Francisco on December 14.
One of the most interesting things researchers noticed during their investigation was that the lightnings themselves were not the direct cause of the observed X-ray emissions.
In charge of producing the energetic light was the lightning leader, which is the name experts give to an air channel that is responsible for carving a path for the entire lightning.
The charged tip this structure has triggers the development of an electrical field that is so strong it accelerates electrons behind it to nearly the speed of light. This is what causes the X-ray emissions.
“Lightning is too cold to emit X-rays. Fifty-thousand degrees Fahrenheit may seem hot to us, but in terms of X-ray temperatures it is downright frigid,” the Georgia Tech expert says.
Now that the technology to conduct such studies exist, investigators at the Institute and elsewhere will most likely set up additional experiments, which will allow them to gain even more insight into the nature of lightning.
Over the past few years, scientists have discovered a variety of phenomena associated with electrical discharges, including lightnings that go upwards, away from the planet, LiveScience reports.