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Scientists Discover A New Kind Of Lightning
Exoman writes "Lightning that shoots upward up to 60 miles from the clouds? A team of researchers led by Han-Tzong Su of the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, videotaped the discharges last July from an observatory on the southern tip of the island. The lightning was firing from the top of thunderclouds more than 300 miles away across the South China Sea. The researchers reported their work Thursday in the journal Nature."
The last time I heard about weird electical lightning formations was when they were throwing around ideas and someone had a suspiscious picture.
from space.com
While it's not likely Columbia was struck by lightning flying through clear skies some 40 miles high, it is possible that some kind of electrical event took place. At least one image is reported to exist in which it appears something like lightning is striking, or discharging from, the shuttle as it approached the California coast.
Also a little more detail in this article.
I never heard anything else so apparantly they decided that the picture was fake or irrelevant, I guess. I wasn't able to find any more current info.
Yes, you are correct. The distinction comes from which side of the equation (cloud or ground) has which charge.
On an interesting side note, if you can find some slow-motion video of a lightning strike (which is probably out there somewhere, they had it on the Discovery Channel a few times) look for the little "streamers" (I think that's the term). The small branches of electricity that come up from the target. When the main bolt hits one of them, it connects to the ground and you have the main strike (BIG bolt).
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
If atmospheric conditions are dependant on these 6,000 cubic kilometer lightning events, wouldn't stringing an orbital elevator cable from the surface of the earth up through the ionosphere have undesirable environmental effects? Would it even be possible to string a cable of any material from the surface through the ionosphere without having a significant ongoing effect on these types of discharges?