Explanation: Thunderstorms almost spoiled this view of the spectacular 2011 June 15 total lunar eclipse. Instead, storm clouds parted for 10 minutes during the total eclipse phase and lightning bolts contributed to the dramatic sky. Captured with a 30-second exposure the scene also inspired one of the more memorable titles (thanks to the astrophotographer) in APOD's now 22-year history. Of course, the lightning reference clearly makes sense, and the shadow play of the dark lunar eclipse was widely viewed across planet Earth in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The picture itself, however, was shot from the Greek island of Ikaria at Pezi. That area is known as "the planet of the goats" because of the rough terrain and strange looking rocks.
<<Ovid (20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), the Latin poet of the Roman Empire, was banished in 8 AD from Rome to Tomis (now Constanţa, Romania) by decree of the emperor Augustus. The reasons for his banishment are uncertain. Ovid's exile is related by the poet himself, and also in brief references to the event by Pliny the Elder and Statius. At the time, Tomis was a remote town on the edge of the civilised world; it lay beyond the Danube and was superficially Hellenized. According to Ovid, none of its citizens spoke Latin, which as an educated Roman he found trying. Ovid wrote that the cause of his exile was carmen et error– "a poem and a mistake," claiming that his crime was worse than murder, more harmful than poetry. Ovid's poems in exile has been seen as of fundamental importance for the study of Roman aristocracy under Augustus and Tiberius, furnishing "precious pieces of information about events and persons". In modern times, classicists have questioned whether the exile was merely a farce, a misrepresentation by Ovid, or a rhetorical and literary device.>>
As a photographer of lightning, I have to say that today's APOD is awesome!
I have often wondered how lightning is born - more to the point - how the charges are separated in the clouds. So I have formulated a hypothesis of how that could happen.
The charge separation starts with rapidly rising air pulling up raindrops, that then are warmer than the surrounding air. This is a source of 'latent heat'. I propose that the water vapor evaporating from these rising raindrops contains a net positive charge. Higher up, this positively charged vapor condenses into and onto small ice crystals. The falling raindrops carry negative charge downward. The reason that convective clouds that are not high enough to contain ice crystals do not (normally) produce lightning may be, not only that they are smaller clouds, but that the ice crystals themselves spark a lightning bolt. How? By heavier chunks of ice hitting and breaking off a piece of a smaller ice crystal, thus creating a tiny (triboluminescent?) spark that 'snowballs' into a full-size lightning strike.
As an addition to my previous comment, I would add that evaporation from ice crystals (sublimation) could also be a source of charge separation, though most of the ice crystals in an Active storm may not be sublimating, but growing.
So, is the lightning in this spectacular shot striking the water surface, cloud to water lightning? If I were in a boat near that strike to the water (not to the boat), what would happen to me, to my craft? How far from the strike on the water would there be an influence of electrification by that strike through the water, within a radius of ____? So could sea life be harmed to some degree?
Catalina wrote:
So, is the lightning in this spectacular shot striking the water surface, cloud to water lightning? If I were in a boat near that strike to the water (not to the boat), what would happen to me, to my craft? How far from the strike on the water would there be an influence of electrification by that strike through the water, within a radius of ____? So could sea life be harmed to some degree?
Lightning Eclipse from the Planet of the Goats
