- 19 hours ago
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- #brightsideglobal
In this video, we will explore the possible explanations for the mysterious blue light that appeared in the sky over several European countries on October 28, 2023. Was it a natural event, such as a meteor or an aurora, or was it a man-made experiment, such as a rocket launch or a laser test? Let's find out! #brightside #brightsideglobal TIMESTAMPS: 0:01 Mysterious light over Europe 08:56 All about ball lightning 17:40 Northern Lights drifted south This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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00:00You're flying above Earth on the International Space Station at an altitude of 250 miles.
00:05You cast a glance out the porthole, and your eyes widen in surprise.
00:10There's some kind of bright blue flash just above nighttime Europe.
00:14It's like there was an explosion of some strange substance there.
00:17Such a strange luminous event was spotted by a French astronaut from aboard the ISS.
00:23And it wasn't an explosion at all.
00:25It was lightning, and was directed upwards.
00:30Until recently, this phenomenon was a kind of fairy tale among pilots.
00:34Scientists had heard their stories about lightning striking upward, and about red and blue flashes at high altitudes too.
00:41But there was no definitive proof of the existence of these luminous events.
00:45But they do exist, and are called sprites, elves, trolls, and ghosts.
00:51So how does ordinary lightning work?
00:53Masses of moist air in a cloud rub against each other and create static electricity.
00:58It would be almost the same if you danced in a wool sweater.
01:01It becomes charged with static electricity.
01:04And if you touch a metal doorknob, there's a discharge between your fingers and the door.
01:08There's your lightning.
01:10So a thundercloud builds up a strong negative charge.
01:13Sooner or later, a leader is born in the cloud.
01:16It's a bright thermo-ionized channel.
01:19Or more simply, lightning.
01:21The leader moves toward the ground in steps of a few tens of feet.
01:25And it can accelerate to an average speed of 200,000 miles per hour.
01:29At that speed, you could make a trip around the Earth in just seven minutes.
01:33But negative particles attract positive particles.
01:37And particles with opposite charges will tend to connect and compensate for each other.
01:41So, simultaneously with the negatively charged leader, the positive charge from the Earth begins its upward journey.
01:48The electric charge from the Earth connects with the negatively charged leader in one channel.
01:53This is when the brightest and loudest discharge happens.
01:56We call it lightning.
01:58It's this discharge that you hear as thunder.
02:00The main lightning doesn't strike from top to bottom, but from bottom to top.
02:05Yep, that is, the lightning is actually directed upward.
02:09It's as if the Earth is striking back at the thundercloud.
02:12And that charge can reach up to 30,000 amps.
02:15Your average wall outlet only has about 15 amps.
02:19And the record for the length of lightning is about 440 miles.
02:23That's more than the width of the state of Kansas.
02:26Meteorologists recorded such lightning in Brazil.
02:28It was a discharge between giant thunderclouds.
02:31And the longest lightning strike was recorded in Argentina.
02:34A single lightning strike there lasted 16.3 seconds.
02:39By comparison, you blink at 0.1 seconds.
02:43So we saw a regular lightning strike.
02:45The positive particles from the ground neutralize the negative particles in the cloud.
02:49But the cloud is still full of positively charged particles.
02:53They accumulate and wait for their time to create lightning.
02:56Once the charge reaches a critical point, the lightning cloud throws that charge dozens of miles upward.
03:02This is called a blue jet.
03:04It's exactly the same luminous event seen by a French astronaut aboard the International Space Station.
03:10The blue jets look like someone turned on a gas burner pointing upward.
03:14The positively charged blue jets neutralize at high altitudes with negatively charged particles.
03:20But people on the ground cannot observe blue jets.
03:23Thunderclouds obstruct the view.
03:25But they can be seen from an airplane.
03:27That's why, for a long time, commercial airline pilots were the only witnesses to this phenomenon.
03:33On board the ISS is also a great place to observe jets.
03:37As they are born at the very top of thick clouds and shoot dozens of miles upwards.
03:42But if you climb even higher, you can see this kind of bizarre lightning.
03:46It's a sprite.
03:47It looks more like a jellyfish, a cloud of red charge at the top, and a bunch of little tentacles
03:53coming down.
03:53Now, normal lightning can have a temperature of about 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
03:58But you can touch a sprite with your hands.
04:00Unless, of course, you're afraid of a powerful electrical discharge.
04:04The sprite has about the same temperature as an energy-saving light bulb.
04:08All because sprites are born in the mesosphere.
04:10This is the layer of our atmosphere that starts at about 31 miles high.
04:14And it's the coldest place on our planet.
04:17On the ground level, where we live, the air is much denser.
04:21There are just more air molecules.
04:22They absorb heat from the sun's rays.
04:25And we feel comfortable.
04:26But the higher up we go, the fewer air molecules there are.
04:30At the altitude at which commercial airline planes fly, there's no longer enough air to accumulate that heat.
04:36You wouldn't even be able to breathe up there.
04:38That's why every airplane has oxygen masks for emergencies.
04:42And the temperature here is even colder than at the South Pole.
04:46In the mesosphere, there's almost no air.
04:48And the temperature here can be around negative 202 degrees Fahrenheit.
04:52And although the temperature of the lightning itself is high,
04:55in general, it's like if you poured a glass of boiling water into a huge barrel of cold water.
05:01The temperature won't change much.
05:03Sprites can only appear when paired with thunderclouds below.
05:06As a discharge occurs in a cloud, a sprite appears in the mesosphere.
05:11It tries to equalize the amount of charge in the atmosphere.
05:14So it's like these red flashes of lightning are trying to reach down to the thunderstorm.
05:19And a sprite itself can be as wide as the state of Massachusetts.
05:24And then there's a ghost.
05:26It can appear for the tiniest fraction of a second right after the sprite.
05:30It's a faint green glow, like an aurora.
05:33They were first discovered in 2014.
05:35And official confirmation by the scientific community only appeared in 2019.
05:41They're still poorly understood.
05:43But there's a hypothesis that ghosts have something in common with auroras.
05:47At least their color is green.
05:49And it may arise due to excited oxygen atoms.
05:53Sometimes we can spot trolls along with sprites.
05:56They look like pillars that support a sprite.
05:58It's a red glow at the end of the sprite's tentacles.
06:02The next moment, the troll releases a red streak down from itself.
06:07And if we climb even higher, we can see the elves.
06:10They only appear for one millisecond.
06:12It's a dim, flat glow that appears during thunderstorms in the ionosphere,
06:17at an altitude of about 62 miles above sea level.
06:20Elves can be as wide as the distance between New York and Washington, D.C.
06:25Elves were first discovered during space shuttle flights in 1990.
06:30And these are pixies.
06:32They weren't discovered until 2000.
06:34Scientists observed bright, brief, luminous events for 20 minutes.
06:38Although they look like lightning striking inside a cloud,
06:41they have nothing to do with them.
06:43Pixies are smaller than 100 meters, which is about 330 feet.
06:47We shouldn't forget that any lightning is extremely dangerous for humans.
06:51And if you're caught in a severe thunderstorm, you need to leave its epicenter immediately.
06:56You can determine how far you are from the epicenter easily.
06:59The speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound.
07:03So, when lightning strikes, it takes a couple of seconds until you hear the thunder.
07:07So, you need to measure that interval.
07:10Lightning!
07:10Now, count the seconds.
07:12Every second of thunder delay after lightning is about 1150 feet.
07:16That's the distance a wave of sound travels in one second.
07:19So, if the thunder delay after a lightning strike is 5 seconds,
07:23you're about 1 mile from the lightning.
07:25You can also tell if there will be a thunderstorm by the smell.
07:29The air before a thunderstorm seems unusually fresh.
07:32This is because the air currents bring in ozone molecules from the upper atmosphere.
07:37The same ozone protects us from harmful ultraviolet rays
07:41and transfers heat from the sun to the atmosphere.
07:43What we use to breathe is the oxygen of two atoms.
07:47Add one more, and you get ozone.
07:50Ultraviolet light breaks down the two oxygen atoms and is absorbed by them.
07:54These broken atoms are then attached to the normal double oxygen atoms.
07:58When an ultraviolet beam strikes an ozone molecule,
08:01it knocks one oxygen atom out of the chain again.
08:04But ozone tends to regenerate.
08:06So, the lost oxygen is reattached to other double atoms.
08:10But the ozone layer began getting damaged
08:12when humanity started emitting harmful gas into the atmosphere.
08:16Freon is to blame.
08:17It's the gas we were using in old refrigerators.
08:20The freon molecule contains harmful chlorine atoms.
08:24Ultraviolet rays knock this atom out of the molecule.
08:27Then that chlorine atom steals one oxygen atom from ozone.
08:31And we have a double oxygen molecule that can't regenerate and save us from the harmful ultraviolet rays.
08:37This causes a hole to appear in the ozone layer.
08:40The most famous ozone hole was over Antarctica.
08:43But when humanity banned the use of harmful chemicals, this hole began to recover.
08:48It's not that the hole will close completely.
08:50It will just return to the way it was before.
08:55Uh-oh.
08:55A strong wind is blowing.
08:57Black clouds cover the sky.
08:59Thunder is rumbling and is pouring down with rain.
09:02A storm is coming.
09:04But you don't care.
09:05You're sitting in your apartment listening to music and typing something on your computer.
09:09You hear a thunderclap.
09:11Look out the window and see a heavy downpour.
09:13A tornado and lightning flashes.
09:16You close all the windows and go back to the computer.
09:19And then, bam!
09:20It seems that lightning has struck near your house.
09:23Your laptop and all electrical appliances in the home go off.
09:27The light goes out.
09:28You get scared.
09:29At this moment, you hear a strange hissing sound.
09:33You see how, like a phantom, a round glowing ball of electricity flies into your house through a closed window.
09:40It penetrates your room, hovers in the air, waits for something, and then flies back through the walls.
09:46The lights turn on, and everything comes back to normal.
09:50You've just seen a real natural phenomenon called ball lightning.
09:54And you're fortunate to be alive after meeting it.
09:57This is a rare phenomenon.
09:59Ball lightning occurs during a thunderstorm in the form of a floating sphere.
10:04It can change color from blue to orange and yellow.
10:07It's the approximate size of a basketball, but can also be much more significant.
10:12This lightning makes a hissing sound and a pungent smell.
10:16Pew!
10:17The first records of ball lightning were made in 1638 in England.
10:21Then, a giant glowing ball flew into the church window.
10:25Since then, there have been a lot of evidence of how ball lightning got into houses and frightened people.
10:31In the 20th and 21st centuries, scientists actively investigated this phenomenon.
10:37They found out that half of the cases with ball lightning were just hallucinations caused by magnetic fields during a
10:43thunderstorm.
10:44But they couldn't wholly refute the fact of the existence of ball lightning.
10:48They agreed that this phenomenon existed, and once, they even managed to record it.
10:54The phenomenon of ball lightning was caught in China.
10:57Researchers studied the behavior of thunderstorms in 2012 using video cameras and spectrometers.
11:03They saw an unusual lightning strike, after which the ball appeared.
11:08It flew horizontally about 33 feet and disappeared.
11:12The spectrometer showed that the ball consisted of silicon, iron, and calcium.
11:17If it's real, then what is its nature?
11:20There are several theories.
11:21Perhaps the ball lightning occurs as a result of a lightning strike on the ground.
11:26Oxygen and evaporated elements from the soil create a reaction in the form of a round clot of energy.
11:32This explains why the spectrometer in 2012 recorded the same calcium in the ball lightning as in the ground.
11:40Another theory says that glass can generate these balls.
11:43Atmospheric ions accumulate on the glass surface and create an electric field.
11:49Together with a lightning strike, this field turns into ball lightning.
11:53That's why there's so much evidence that the sphere flies into the building through the window.
11:58In 2016, scientists pointed out that a lightning strike on the ground created microwave radiation that can form into a
12:06plasma bubble.
12:07This floating electric plasma takes a round shape and hovers in the air for a few seconds.
12:13Earthquakes can cause ball lightning, too.
12:16During ground tremors, flashes of light appear from the depths of the crust.
12:20It's like lightning that comes not from the sky, but from the ground.
12:24Some of these lights may look like floating blue spheres.
12:27In 2014, scientists studied earthquake lights and found that some rocks emit electrical discharges during seismic wave impacts.
12:35In 2006, researchers at a university in Tel Aviv created a laboratory to study ball lightning.
12:42They used microwave radiation to recreate a lightning-like electric charge.
12:47In 2018, quantum physicists made a complex synthetic magnetic field similar to ball lightning.
12:55Physicists, chemists, meteorologists, and other scientists have conducted research and laboratory experiments many times to understand the nature of this
13:03phenomenon.
13:04But, so far, no one has succeeded.
13:07Other glowing balls are less dangerous, but still mysterious.
13:11In clear weather, you can see strange glowing lights away from cities, somewhere in a swampy area.
13:18Previously, when there was no electricity, people noticed these lights.
13:21They thought someone needed help.
13:23What if some guy is stuck in the swamp and shines a kerosene lamp to get seen?
13:28People went to these lights to help, but fell into the swamp.
13:32And the light either flew away or disappeared.
13:35Some records speak of several lights at once.
13:37They move quickly and change their colors.
13:40Many believe that these were some kind of mystical creatures that lured people into traps.
13:46But, over time, scientists managed to uncover the mystery of this phenomenon.
13:52Bioluminescent fungi and algae grow in swampy places.
13:55Sometimes, they glow with blue light and create the illusion of glowing lights from a distance.
14:01Also, there's a lot of plant material in the swamps.
14:04Leaves, grass, mud, clay, and tree branches.
14:07These substances decompose rapidly in humid conditions and release methane.
14:13As soon as methane contacts air, it ignites.
14:16The flame flies over the swamp in the form of a burning ball.
14:20Mysterious lights appear not only in swamps.
14:23People see them in deserts or mountainous areas.
14:26Sometimes, it's headlights from cars.
14:28In other cases, it's the signal lights of an airplane.
14:31But in many cases, the nature of such lights remains unknown.
14:36And now, imagine a huge ball the size of a small city.
14:41It's like a dome, covers a large area, and protects it from tornadoes and storms.
14:47This phenomenon is called the Delco weather bubble and is located in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
14:53That's how it all started.
14:54In 1996, one of the strongest snowstorms of the 20th century hit the U.S. East Coast.
15:01It was named the Blizzard of 1996.
15:03It covered almost all of Pennsylvania.
15:06But in the small town of Delaware County, Delco for short, the weather was good.
15:11The storm raged around but didn't touch the city.
15:15Since that year, the locals have believed that an abnormal weather bubble protects their houses.
15:20However, there's no scientific evidence of the existence of this bubble.
15:25After the blizzard of 1996, there were several more storms in the area.
15:29And forecasters claimed some storms would also cover Delco.
15:33But, contrary to their forecasts, the weather there was excellent.
15:38Strangely, there is no meteorological evidence of this.
15:41One of the residents decided to investigate this phenomenon seriously.
15:45He followed the weather forecasts, looked at satellite photos, and saw how the black clouds diverged around the city.
15:53It rained heavily in the neighboring towns, but not Delco.
15:57This seems like convincing proof.
15:59And the question remains, should we believe the locals?
16:03There's one scientific explanation explaining the nature of this phenomenon.
16:07Storms may weaken here thanks to the sea air that accumulates in the Delco area.
16:12The street and the city's surrounding area are filled with this humid, cold air.
16:17It creates a sort of stabilization of the atmosphere.
16:20And when intense storms from the west collide with Delco's air, they lose a significant part of their strength.
16:27And it seems as if bad weather just bypasses the city.
16:31But there's another explanation.
16:33A psychological one.
16:35All the known information about the weather bubble came from the stories of residents.
16:40They seek confirmation of this phenomenon and write about it on social media.
16:45Someone said that they'd seen a tornado pass by his house.
16:48Others claim that the bubble had saved them from a downpour.
16:51People think that it didn't affect others if there was no trouble with their house.
16:56Imagine the TV says that a storm has started in your city.
17:00You look out of the window and see a clear sky.
17:02No wind and rain.
17:04It seems to you that the bubble has saved you again.
17:07Although, behind you, a few hundred feet from your backyard, a tornado is raging and tearing the roofs off of
17:14buildings.
17:14But you didn't see it and wrote to the social network that Delco has saved your city again.
17:20In this sense, the weather bubble becomes more like a virtual one.
17:24Thanks to the people who write about it.
17:27Bright, colorful flashes of pink and green light up the sky.
17:31You're watching it from your backyard in Pennsylvania.
17:33That's not something you're used to, but it's very likely to happen more often in the near future as the
17:39northern lights are shifting south.
17:41Northern lights, or auroras, appear as a result of solar storms.
17:46The sun is a huge ball of molten gases that are constantly moving, so such storms aren't rare.
17:52Our star produces a huge amount of energy that goes our way.
17:56It travels as electrical charges at the speed of about 3 million miles per hour.
18:01No big deal.
18:02When all those tiny particles from the sun reach Earth's atmosphere,
18:06they give some of the energy to atoms and molecules in its upper layer.
18:10The atoms and molecules can't hold it and give it off as light.
18:13You can see it as spectacular auroras around the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres.
18:20If you were watching them from space, they'd look like large ovals.
18:24The brightness, colors, and shapes auroras take depend on the altitude where the lights are formed
18:29and what particles take part in the process.
18:32In the northern hemisphere, locations like Alaska, Canada, and much of Scandinavia
18:37normally get to see the brightest lights.
18:40The biggest solar storm ever was recorded in 1859,
18:44and it was so powerful that the northern lights were spotted in Cuba and Honolulu,
18:49and southern lights were seen as far up as Santiago, Chile.
18:53In latitudes like that of New York,
18:55people were able to read newspapers in the dark under those northern lights alone.
18:59If something similar happened today,
19:02it would have caused $1 to $2 trillion in damage.
19:05With solar activity and pressure from the solar winds increasing,
19:10the aurora belt's borders are currently shifting south.
19:13Solar activity goes in cycles, each of them 11 years long.
19:17We're now in solar cycle 25, which started in December 2019,
19:21and will reach its maximum strength between November 2024 and March 2026.
19:28So, geomagnetic storms will become stronger and probably even reach G5 levels.
19:34Those levels are their strength ratings.
19:36For you to see the northern lights south of the Great Lakes,
19:39a storm must be rated at least G3.
19:42G5 storms will be able to produce auroras that will even reach Florida.
19:47In case you don't want to wait for the sun activity to peak in 2025,
19:51head north if you're in the northern hemisphere,
19:53or south if you're in the southern hemisphere.
19:56Auroras down there are known as the southern lights,
19:58or aurora australis.
20:00It doesn't have to be cold for you to see the northern lights.
20:03It just has to be dark.
20:05Auroras are active throughout the year.
20:08You can't see them from April to August in the northernmost parts of the world
20:12because it's light 24-7.
20:14It's also important that there isn't any precipitation or clouds in the sky.
20:19Those will block your view.
20:21Light pollution won't help either, so move away from any cities.
20:24Try to get to an elevation to maximize your chances of spotting the lights.
20:29They can appear in a whole variety of colors, including white-gray.
20:33The green-yellow part you're most likely to imagine while thinking of the lights
20:36is just the easiest to spot with an unaided human eye.
20:40Sometimes you might not see the lights at all,
20:42but your camera will still catch them.
20:45They might seem dangerously close to Earth,
20:47but the closest the northern lights ever get to us is 50 miles.
20:50For comparison, planes normally fly at around 6 miles above the surface,
20:56and that already seems like a lot.
20:58The distance from Earth defines the color of the auroras.
21:01When atoms giving us this spectacular show collide closer to Earth,
21:05you can see blues and violets in the sky.
21:08Green and red auroras are born further away from our planet.
21:12Earth isn't the only planet to have northern lights.
21:15Jupiter and Saturn both have strong magnetic fields,
21:19and scientists spotted auroras up there using the Hubble Space Telescope
21:23and the Cassini and Galileo spacecraft.
21:26It looks like Saturn's auroras are also caused by solar winds,
21:30but it's not so clear about Jupiter.
21:32Despite what you can often see online,
21:35the northern lights aren't going to disappear altogether.
21:37Once the sun passes its activity peak and becomes less active,
21:41both the northern and the southern lights will happen less frequently,
21:45but will still be gorgeous.
21:47Another beautiful rare phenomenon is called the green flash.
21:51It happens shortly after sunset or before sunrise
21:55when the sun is almost entirely below the horizon,
21:58and the Earth's atmosphere bends and scatters light from it.
22:02People mostly spot it over the ocean.
22:04It can also be yellow, blue, or purple.
22:08About once a year, you can spot a rare firenado in the U.S.
22:13Fire tornadoes start when a strong wind picks up heat from a fire.
22:17They are made of a flame or ash.
22:20They're different from regular tornadoes
22:22because they don't start from cyclones.
22:25Firenadoes are about as tall as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
22:29Unlike firenadoes, fire rainbows or rainbow clouds
22:32don't cause any damage at all
22:34as they don't have anything to do with fire.
22:36You can only see them when the sun is very high in the sky,
22:40and its light is passing through ice clouds,
22:42so they're pretty rare.
22:44The rainbow halos are just as unique.
22:47Again, it takes a specific type of ice crystals
22:50in the clouds of the surface of the Earth
22:52to bend light from the sun into a perfect ring.
22:55The same thing can happen with moonlight.
22:57The only difference will be that the moon halos are usually white,
23:01and sun halos can be rainbow color.
23:04A white rainbow is another rare illusion,
23:07this time created by fog and water.
23:10Like a usual rainbow,
23:12it's formed when light is shining through droplets of water.
23:15It loses color because fog droplets
23:17are hundreds of times smaller than those of rain.
23:19A white rainbow is sometimes mistaken for a moon bow.
23:23You can spot this one at night time as the moon illuminates it.
23:27That's why it's not so bright.
23:30If you ever see an upside-down rainbow in the sky,
23:33that's a circumzenithal arc.
23:35It's not really a rainbow,
23:37but a kind of halo like those around the sun or the moon.
23:41This optical phenomenon is caused by ice crystals
23:44in the upper atmosphere.
23:45You have the best chance to see a circumzenithal arc
23:48when the sun is rather low in the sky.
23:52It happens super rarely,
23:54but it can rain without a single cloud in the sky.
23:56It's sometimes called a sun shower
23:59because it looks like the rain is falling straight from the sun.
24:02In reality, rain clouds are at a distance from that specific location.
24:07With sun rays being angled,
24:08the clouds become out of sight.
24:10Then, it takes just a little wind
24:12to blow the rain in your direction.
24:15If you ever travel to regions with high altitudes,
24:18you might see something called penitentes.
24:21Those ice spikes form only in a really cold and elevated environment
24:25where the air is dry.
24:27The sunlight turns ice directly into vapor
24:29instead of melting it into water.
24:31That's why these blades of snow and ice up to 15 feet tall
24:35start to pop up on the surface of the earth.
24:38One of the rarest types of clouds
24:41is lenticular clouds that look like giant mountain hats.
24:45They're formed when moist air travels over a mountain or a mountain range
24:49and gets into an area of turbulence.
24:53Volcanoes can produce bolts of lightning.
24:55They're formed in columns of volcanic ash
24:58through friction and static electricity
25:00to connect the positively and negatively charged particles.
25:03To understand how it works,
25:05you can rub a balloon across your hair
25:07or your feet across a carpet
25:09and then touch a metal doorknob.
25:12Once a year, just for a few moments,
25:15a waterfall in Yosemite turns into a fireball.
25:18In winter and early spring,
25:20two streams flow down El Capitan Mountain
25:23in perfect conditions in February
25:25when the sun is hiding behind the horizon.
25:28It gets into the right position
25:29to reflect off the wall
25:31and color the water into fiery orange.
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