Sprites, Jets, and Elves

[StefanR]

http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpB ... 7560#p7560

Gamma ray flashes due to plasma processes in the atmosphere: Role of whistler waves

Abstract

A proposed mechanism for the generation of gamma ray flashes in the atmosphere, observed on Compton Gamma Ray Observatory satellite, is a runaway discharge mediated by whistler waves. In this model the relativistic electrons produced by a cosmic ray shower during a thunderstorm lead to a runaway discharge, which is maintained by the interaction with whistler waves and the relativistic electrons propagate up in ducts produced by the self-focusing of these waves. The paper presents a detailed study of the instability which develops in the lower stratosphere when a beam of hot magnetized electrons interacts with whistler waves. It was shown that the growth rate of such instability depends on the number density of hot electrons and on their collision rate, and it peaks at about 25 km. The instability develops under the conditions for runaway breakdown, similar to those leading to the generation of strong narrow bipolar pulses, which indicates a possible correlation between these two phenomena.

V. CONCLUSION
In this paper we have discussed a novel scenario for the
creation of gamma ray flashes. During a typical lightning
discharge, a small fraction of the energy of the 500 kJ of
EMP generated can sustain a population of 1016 energetic
electrons ~;1 MeV!, which can be transported in selffocused
whistler wave ducts to a height of about 30 km. At
this height these energetic electrons can give rise to the 1 ms
gamma ray flash by the process of bremsstrahlung and those
flashes can escape from the atmosphere into space. It is only
through this whistler-medicated, self-focusing instability that
the energetic electrons can be delivered to the desired
heights. The characteristic time scale of the gamma ray flash
is also of the order of the time scale for the lightning flash.
The observations of whistlers during lightning flashes is well
documented.19 Thus the proposed mechanism brings together
a series of naturally occurring events to provide a viable
transport mechanism for the energetic electrons to the 30–35
km height for conversion into gamma rays.

[StefanR]

STRANGE LIGHTNING: High above Earth, in the realm of meteors and noctilucent clouds, a strange and beautiful form of lightning dances at the edge of space. Researchers call the bolts "sprites"; they are red, fleeting, and tend to come in bunches. Atmospheric scientist Oscar van der Velde of Sant Vicenç de Castellet, Spain, photographed this specimen on June 5th:

http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?vie ... &year=2009

EuroSprite 2009
The hunt for upper atmospheric electric phenomena above thunderstorms continues - Red Sprites, Blue Jets and Elves
http://eurosprite.blogspot.com/

http://www.sonotaco.com/e_index.html

[mharratsc]

I'm really glad this thread was de-archived- thanks! There's some fascinating info in here, truly.

Some of the articles made mention that various groups were doing investigations into the movement of charge through various layers of the atmosphere. I'd mentioned in another thread about how I wondered if the different bands of the atmosphere didn't function as plasma double layers (albeit of very low charge differential). Thinking on that- I thought it would make perfect sense if so- lightning and sprites occurring when the sheath broke down and equalized between the different layers (if I indeed understand the physics correctly).

I wonder also if there aren't charge differentials in layers beneath the Earth? Telluric current paths are static, but what if those current paths aren't *always* discharging? Would buildups of charge on one side of a subterranean 'double layer' and then and explosive discharge account for some of the deep seismic and volcanic activity we can detect with modern day instruments?

Sorry if this is getting 'out there', but it's early, my Low Coffee light is blinking on my forehead, and I'm still knocking the sleep outta my brain...

[StevenJay]

I was doing a 'crazy weather' search and this came up from http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2 ... _homes.php.

Is it just me, or does anyone else see a ramping-up of anomalous electrical phenomena? Would a thread chronicling and tracking such events be worthwhile?

[ElecGeekMom]

I, for one, would like to see a thread for this sort of thing. Especially since the US gummint has stopped publicizing the incidence of meteoroids, etc.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Steven,
No, it's not just you. I too have been keeping a 'weather-eye' on such things.

[bboyer]

I have no idea what the Netherlands electrical code is, but this sounds like it may have been an electrical company neutral (or ground) service return problem. If their system is anything like in the U.S. where central metallic (iron, copper) plumbing is connected to the grounding system then some type of major interruption (open ground) to the main service return lines to sub-stations and eventually the main power source could involve entire neighborhoods/homes tied in via the plumbing system. The story gives no input from the electrical service provider other than saying that a local "cable company" (is that cable as in Internet, tv, phone? or is that cable as in electric power company? or both?) were called out to replace 97 electrical connections to households in the area. Nothing about a possible (probable?) major service-return line(s) problem/open circuit condition which would (in the U.S. at least) "light up" (i.e. "hot" plumbing lines) entire housing areas, using city plumbing paths as return instead of the electric company service-return grids. I'm not a professional electrician but I would suspect a major open ground/fault condition at the community's service plant first, before wandering off into anomalous electrical phenomena. Of course, the media would more than likely not follow up if such a mundane explanation proved to be at the root of the problem, or it would be buried in a small 1 or 2 inch column somewhere. Especially given possible insurance liability issues.

With problems like extreme over-building in some areas, sloppy code enforcement, and sheer strain on existing services and resources, I for one would expect more frequent "strange" occurrences like this being reported.

Here is one example I found just doing a quick search for ... potential ... problems. Add some average, or even above average, electrical storms into the picture and well ....

http://www.emfservices.com/ground.htm

[Lloyd]

Unusual weather, electric fires etc reminds me of a thread we had here over a year ago I guess with a guy who thinks he's Tesla reincarnated. His website http://humanresonance.org has some interesting material. He was discussing on the forum for a while, but not long.

[mharratsc]

You're absolutely right about the investigation needing to incorporate the utilities, Arc. I work for a cable TV company in the US, and we've had lightning hits on trunk lines or connected subscribers homes cause plasma effects much further down the line. I was also a flyer on a big bird in the US Navy, and a lightning strike through our forward radome to the radar antenna pedestal arc'ed into our #1 and #2 hydraulic lines. The lines conducted the charge through the belly of the aircraft and out a rear VHF antenna, and created the biggest will-o-wisp I ever heard of floating slowly down the tube of the plane and freaked us all out

However, I also remember reading an article from a couple of months ago about a small town in Italy that thought it had been attacked by aliens, because they suffered from all kinds of discharge activity- St. Elmo's Fire, ball lightning, spontaneous combustion, and bizarre RF conditions took down most communications services in their area.

The skies were blue without a cloud in them... but they were located very, very close to an old volcano...

Mike H.

[keeha]

http://lessons.astrology.com/course/sho ... -Radiation

Thunderstorms and Cosmic Radiation—It has been shown that the maximum in thunderstorms coincides with the maximum in galactic cosmic radiation (and vice versa), and that minimum thunderstorm activity coincides with the minimum in galactic cosmic ray radiation. There have been many studies on the relationship of cosmic radiation to lunar activity. Cosmic radiation consists of energetic particles entering our solar system from beyond its aura, or magnetosphere. As mentioned, there is an inverse relationship between cosmic radiation and solar activity. In other words, the increased solar wind at sunspot maximum keeps cosmic radiation out of the solar system and away from the Earth. During the years of sunspot minimum, cosmic radiation is strong enough to penetrate the solar aura and reach the Earth’s atmosphere.

Thunderstorms and the Moon—It has been shown that the maximum in thunderstorms coincides with maximum geomagnetic activity. In addition, it has been shown that thunderstorm activity is modulated by lunar position. The greatest number of thunderstorms occur after either new or full Moon. Thunderstorm frequency reaches a maximum two days after full Moon and remains high for most of the third quarter.

[leo vuyk]

The origin of micro Comets and Ball lightning.
(What goes DOWN sometimes goes UP)
18 years ago during heavy thunderstorm in the Netherlands, a photo camera with automatic shutter recorded strange bead lightning streaks with interesting curvature.
At the end of some streaks a fire ball was visible.
Reconstruction of the curvature of the bead lightning suggested that all the streaks should have some relation to each other and the same frequency.
See: Rigid Gluonium Knots and Ball lightning
http://bigbang-entanglement.blogspot.co ... en-by.html

Could it be, that electromagnetic wave interference (with the same wavelength) was responsible for this phenomenon?
The answer was YES if there was also an x-ray (or Gamma-ray) component into play.
Why do we need this x-ray phenomenon? Because not all lightning strokes produce bead lightning or fireball ball lightning.
There must be some irregular component responsible for the incidental emerging of Ball lightning and Bead lightning.
This component could be found in the recent experiment results of professor J.R.Dwyer, ( Geospace physics lab,FIT). He discovered the x-rays emission from laboratory sparks and lightning strokes.
(see: The observation of x-ray bursts produced by 1.5 MV laboratory sparks in air
http://my.fit.edu/~jdwyer/AGU2005poster.doc )
Recently also M.Rahman (Upsala university Sweden) made comparable experiments: “x-rays from 80 cm long sparks in air” with x-ray emission results, see:
http://www.lightning.ece.ufl.edu/PDF/AG ... l_2008.pdf

However, if strong electromagnetic radiation and accompanying x-rays are responsible for ball lightning, then perhaps also (larger) ball lightning effects could be found in space at places with high discharge energies like so called SPRITES and ELVES or even near the solar surface by so called BIRKELAND currents.
Judge for yourselves and look at the slow-motion video of Langmuir University of sprites and elves. See under: “Sprites and Elves as the origin of small Comets and large Ball Lightnings”
http://migratingblackholes.blogspot.com ... small.html
What you see is the production of lots of fireballs going down and partly after a while going up again!!! Just like the solar photo presenting at least four fireballs going down and ONE going upwards!! See; “Small Comet production by Solar Birkeland current interference” http://migratingblackholes.blogspot.com/

Leo Vuyk.

[MattEU]

Interesting stuff with the comet, sprites, ball lightning and associated phenomenon like the X-rays, plasma producing water vapour etc. Do shooting stars also produce X-rays or are they just bits of dust lighting up the sky?

But can you prove to me that Black Holes and Micro Black Holes actually exist? Is there any physical evidence that any "Black Hole" actually physically sucks anything in? All the physical stuff (images) I have seen shows jets etc pushing pushed out of what are known as "Black Holes".

[mharratsc]

I don't see how there could NOT be emissions in the x-ray band in events like this, considering that they have evidence that peeling sticky tape off of paper produces x-ray emissions-quite a bit more intense phenomena...

Mike H.

[Florian]

Sounds familiar isn't it?

http://www.livescience.com/environment/ ... tning.html

[keeha]

Fundamentally, the author has little understanding of what he is informing about. What grade level is this? Kindergarden?

lightning... apparently find their way out the tops of thunderclouds, and then keep going and keep going and keep going until they run into something that stops them,"