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Shockingly powerful lightning on Earth

lightning-earth-study

Image credit: TW

A new scientific paper suggests that lightning on Earth may be vastly more powerful than conventional science has ever suggested.

Investigators sought to answer how much energy is in a terrestrial bolt of lightning through the study of fulgurites, which are hollow glass tubes that form when lightning strikes soil, silica, sand, or rock.

To their surprise, they found that the lightning that formed some of the fulgurites had far more energy than is expected of Earthly lightning.

Video courtesy The Thunderbolt Project

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