For the first time in human history, a group of scientists from the People's Republic of China, led by specialists Xiangliao Li, were able to measure the temperature inside a lightning discharge. More details about the scientific work can be found on the pages of Scientific Reports.
To develop artificial lightning, the authors of the work used the so-called shock generator, which is capable of showing discharges with currents up to several tens of thousands of amperes. In an artificially created discharge, scientists were able to measure the temperature of the plasma, which varied from six to ten thousand degrees Celsius.
In addition, the authors of the work were able to establish that the temperature inside the discharge channel and the current strength are related to a logarithmic law, and this, in turn, is consistent with theoretical calculations for lightning, which we can observe in nature.
Scientists have long been trying to unravel the nature of lightning, as this phenomenon is very exciting and amazing, but the most formidable and unpredictable.
Apostolova-Polishchuk Nadezhda