These rings keep the electric field from getting concentrated enough to produce a lot of plasma. To minimize that effect, many long-distance power lines feature hoop-like "corona rings" around pointy areas such as the tips of towers and poles. Elmo's fire can sap valuable electricity. Elmo's fire doesn't burn or present any immediate danger beyond the potentially stormy weather itself.Įngineers, however, must take corona discharge into account when designing electrical equipment, particularly power lines, as unwanted instances of St. Elmo's fire dangerous?įortunately for hikers and sailors, St. Orange balls of the size of a soccer ball were flying by the wind on the background of black clouds." Is St. Still lower, at a height of 4,000 to 4,100 m, lightning was flashing. The higher was the point, the larger was a tongue of flame on it. I could see still tongues of light-blue flame on every point of steel framework which protruded from the ruins. "Just under me, there was a dilapidated building. While those hovering spheres of light remain poorly understood, the two events have been reported together, as in this mountaineer's account from 1977, reported in the Journal of Scientific Exploration: Elmo's fire with ball lightning, another incandescent phenomenon known for millennia. The colorful lights of the aurora get their glow from relaxing particles as well, although the electrons that excite these particles ultimately get their energy from the solar wind, rather than electrically charged clouds. A lightning bolt’s glow contains blue and purple for the same reason, but it also shines white - a mixture of many colors - as it heats the air around it. Elmo's fire tends to take place in stormy conditions, it's a distinct phenomenon from lightning. For nitrogen and oxygen, which dominate in Earth's atmosphere, that burst of light burns blue and violet, respectively. "They get all excited, and then they have to relax." To cool down, the excited particles emit a photon of light with a particular energy and color. Imagine "some bully going through the schoolyard kicking all the kids," said Kristina Lynch, a plasma physicist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. As the electric field slings electrons around, they knock into neutral particles and agitate those neutral particles into a more energetic state. Elmo's fire shines via a process called corona discharge. Once the air around a mast has partially transformed into a plasma, St. Related: Elves, Sprites & Blue Jets: Earth's Weirdest Lightning A strong enough field can theoretically break air down into a plasma anywhere, but in practice, sharp points (such as the mast of a ship) tend to concentrate the field, stripping electrons from atoms to leave behind charged ions in especially high numbers near sharp places. During a storm, friction builds up extra electrons in certain parts of clouds, generating powerful electric fields that reach the ground. This point represents the transition from a gas, a cloud of neutral particles, to a plasma, a cloud containing many charged particles.Įlectricity can tear up gas molecules and make a plasma more easily than heat can, which is the key to St. Continue to dump energy into the vapor (by heating it past 21,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or 12,000 degrees Celsius, for instance), and the atoms in the water molecules get roughed up, losing their electrons and becoming charged ions. For example, heating solid ice breaks molecular crystals into liquid water, and boiling liquid water liberates water molecules to rise as a gaseous vapor. Plasma occurs when excess energy breaks up atoms in a neutral gas to create a charged gas.
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