• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Mysterious Blue Light Videoed During Avalanche May Be Strange Electromagnetic Phenomenon

November 27, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

An astrophotographer attempting to create a timelapse of trails of stars behind Mount Xiannairi in Sichuan, China, ended up capturing a strange blue light being emitted during an avalanche.

Shengyu Li set up the timelapse on October 27, when a block of ice broke free from the mountain and sparked a small avalanche. Avalanches happen pretty frequently, but it soon became clear Li had captured a particularly interesting one. Take a look at the footage below, and you will see a blue flash as the ice and snow descends.

Advertisement

“We have not found any previously documented cases of such an event, making this discovery both thrilling and intriguing for us,” Li told Spaceweather.com. “Our initial hypothesis is that the luminescence may result from friction-induced lighting during the fragmentation of ice.”

ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.

While rare, the phenomenon was also captured just a few weeks earlier on October 3 on Muztagh Ata, by Lu Miao, again during an avalanche.

Advertisement

So, what is going on here? Weirdly, you can see a related effect by smashing a Wint-O-Green Lifesaver mint with a hammer, known as triboluminescence. 



While we know a little about the effect, and mechanisms behind it, it is not fully understood.

“Triboluminescence is the emission of spontaneous light by mechanical force. This mechanical force is typically activated as a result of frictional contact such as rubbing or scratching,” a review on the topic explains. “Triboluminescence is a cold light emission that is activated by the mechanical force of rubbing, scratching, or other frictional contacts. Another form of luminescence occurs when the mechanical force is sufficient to break material bonds resulting in fracture. This luminescence is referred to as fractoluminescence, fracture stress-mechanoluminescence, or fracture triboluminescence.”

Advertisement

As noted by SpaceWeather.com, previous scientific papers have noted electromagnetic emissions (EME) associated with growing cracks in ice, and cracks under mechanical stress.

“The main cause of EME from cracks in natural ice is the so-called ‘frozen-in’ or ‘intrinsic’ electrical field that is always presents in both sea and freshwater ice. This electrical field is generated by spatial nonuniformity in the concentration of ions dissolved in the ice bulk,” one paper explains.

“Mobile ions trapped in the ice bulk then diffuse against the gradient of their concentration, generating electrical charge transport and an intrinsic electrical field in ice.”

This charge buildup is small, but can be more dramatic when cracks appear quickly.

Advertisement

“When an ice mass is split by a crack rapidly growing in the direction perpendicular to the electrical field, the field generates two surface charges of the opposite sign on the opposite surfaces of the crack,” the paper continues. “Such a large potential difference can easily explain why the intrinsic electrical field dominates among the causes of EME from cracks in ice.”

Such a dramatic effect, as seen in the mountains, however, is as rare as it is sparkly.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Manchester test likely to be postponed after India COVID-19 case
  2. EU to attend U.S. trade meeting put in doubt by French anger
  3. Soccer-West Ham win again, Leicester and Napoli falter
  4. Lacking Company, A Dolphin In The Baltic Is Talking To Himself

Source Link: Mysterious Blue Light Videoed During Avalanche May Be Strange Electromagnetic Phenomenon

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • “It Seemingly Put On An Otherworldly Show”: Watch As This Beautiful Deep-Sea Octopus Glides Gracefully Through The Ocean
  • Have You Heard About America’s Government Cheese Caves? They’ve Got Over 600 Million Kilograms Of The Stuff Stashed Away
  • There Could Be A Surprising Health Benefit To Having Gray Hair
  • New Answer To The Fermi Paradox? Cognitive Horizon Hypothesis May Explain Why Aliens Haven’t Contacted Us
  • What Happened When Patient B-19 Was Given A Brain Stimulation Device And A Button?
  • The Ice Age Squirrel That Enabled A Plant’s Resurrection 31,800 Years Later
  • The First Video Game Came Long Before Pong And Was Invented By A Manhattan Project Physicist
  • Monster Hoaxes In The Age Of AI: Seeing Isn’t Believing Anymore
  • Everyone Thought This Ancient City Was Destroyed By Plague. A New Analysis Says It Never Happened
  • The “Mind’s Eye” Doesn’t Focus Like Our Vision, Even For People Who Have One
  • Strep Throat Or Sore Throat: What’s The Difference?
  • Reptiles “Pee” Crystals, But What Are They Made Of? Scientists Wanted To Find Out
  • A Vaccine For Stomach Ulcers Might Be On The Cards, And It Could Fight Off Cancer Too
  • Only One Place On Earth Now Remains Mosquito-Free As Iceland Records First-Ever Sighting
  • This Is One Of The Only Groups Of People Outside Africa Who Had Virtually No Denisovan DNA
  • Puzzling “Transient” Lights In The 1950s Skies Focused Around Nuclear Testing Facilities, Intriguing Study Finds
  • The Maya Calendar Had A Way To Predict Eclipses That Was Accurate For Centuries
  • “Elon Owes You $100”: Musk’s SpaceX Settles Lawsuit With Cards Against Humanity
  • Eyes To The Skies! The Special Orionids Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight
  • Flying Spiders Are Real, But It’s Not As Frightening As It Sounds
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version