"Oxygen and nitrogen?"
"Yes for oxygen, no for nitrogen. You have one more guess."
One more guess before what? Failing a course? Having to re-write eleven mighty pages of homework? Every fear I had ever felt in my life flashed before my eyes. Rack your brain, Gracie.
"OH. Silicon."
"Correct."
Yeah, I exaggerated. No fears whatsoever were flashing before my eyes, because I made a simple mistake in thinking about the atmosphere. Although, had the flashing occurred, I know exactly what I would've remembered.
When I was a kid, I would get my toddler hands on any book around me. As a result, I was often terrified by the things I saw in non-fiction picture books. I vividly remember not being able to sleep after seeing an illustration of the fabled ball lightning. Right now, I want nothing more than to snuggle up beside the small bundle trembling in bed and tell her that in eleven years, she would be alive. Yes, procrastinating and lacking common sense, but very much breathing and not incinerated by a ball of light. I also wish that I can explain to her what ball lightning is, but I can't.
I had completely forgotten about this childhood learning until the huge storm some weeks ago. Ball lightning stayed out of my mind until then, and is now back to do its 'haunting'.
For centuries, ball lightning has been told to suddenly descend from the sky, burning buildings and often causing fatal injuries. However, because of its rarity and erratic nature, it has never been caught on camera until January this year! While researchers were mapping radiation during a thunderstorm in Qinghai, China, they miraculously recorded one by accident: (the white dot in the left corner)
Source-Mail Online
Here is a 1886 depiction of ball lightning wreaking havoc: (source-Wikipedia)
It is hypothesized that the silica in Earth's crust is vaporized when struck by lightning. (Yes, I finally concluded my non-scientific ramble.) Due to reasons still unknown to man, it is possible that the oxygen is, during that instance, temporarily separated from the silicon dioxide. When the silicon cools, oxidation takes place and it is proposed that the "ball of light" phenomena is in fact caused by energy emitted from the silicon bonding back with oxygen. Well, who knows? There have been a few more theories, like the Charged Solid Core Model and the Microwave Cavity Hypothesis, but my bet is on the only one I can make sense of-the one I described.
Although I am nowhere close to understanding anything about this phenomenon, it is nonetheless rather satisfying to experience an 'uh-huh, learned that'-moment when reading about the Vaporized Silicon Hypothesis because, heck, silicon and oxygen, I know from my beloved earth and space class that the crust is loaded with that stuff. It's a start.
