Stay Curious: St. Elmo's fire
Some natural occurring phenomena are extremely rare and impressive! Thunderstorms or hurricanes tend to scare us and put our life in danger. Other natural phenomenons are amazingly beautiful! One of the most astonishing weather phenomenon is the Fire of St. Elmo’s.
The St. Elmo’s fire is a coronal discharge that occurs in the hours before massive electrical discharges. In weather conditions where the electric field of the atmosphere has high values, there is a flux of electrons that give certain brightens in the sky.
The phenomenon was often observed by sailors during the storms, when “fire” appeared along the masts of the ships.
This spectacular effect has always been considered as a divine sign.
In medieval Europe, these lights were associated with the Catholic Church’s Satin Elmo, the patron saints of sailor. According to the legend, before he died, he promised to pray for sailors from the other world and warn them of dangers through these lights.
The ancient Greeks associated the St. Elmo with one of the fundamental elements, namely fire. The Welsh called the phenomenon “the candles of the Holy Ghost” or the “candles of St. David”.
In China, it was believed that the goddess of the sea, Mazu, was the one that gave birth to the fire around the ships to guide sailors at sea.
The Mazu goddess
The fire of St. Elmo appears in the writings of many historical figures, starting with Iulius Caesar in De Bello Africo, to Antonio Pigafetta’s travel journal along with Fernando Magellan or to Charles Darwin’s notes.
The phenomenon has a perfectly valid explanation from the point of view of physics. The fire of Saint Elmo appears in the form of a flowing blue or violet, fire-like, and forms around, sharp objects such as parachutes, airplanes or chimneys. Sometimes the fire is accompanied by background-like noises.
When enough energy is produced, the electrons in the nitrogen and oxygen molecules begin to emit a blue light. You can see this happening in this video bellow:
We can see that the air has become very electrically charged, and because of the difference in the electricity from the two person’s bodies, the electric charge that underlies St. Elmo’s phenomenon has arisen.
If you want to find more about how lightings works, check this video from SciShow:
great post, greetings
interesting stuff! never heard of it before. it must be frightening to seen it live when you are on a boat with no near shore around.
I think so too, I've only seen in videos; electricity was one of the things I was afraid, after I had a bad experience, when I was little. Now, I am not so frighten about electricity :)
Hey @sarmizegetusa I am a curator from the new Whaleshares Curation Team. I have selected your post, from our #postpromotion channel, to be presented in a live curation discussion on Monday 13th November at 6.59pm EST and 11.59pm UTC. Your post will be awarded with a 25 Whaleshares vote on the night. I do hope you can come along and spectate. The event will be held in The Curation Lounge on the Whaleshares server. Hope to see you there.
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Thank you so much @mikepm74!!! I wasn't able to participate yesterday, because I didn't saw the message on time and I went to sleep.
Hope to get an other chance!
No problem! We talked about your post anyway, and hopefully you are seeing the positive effect of some votes on it! Keep putting together good content, and we'll see you back in the Curation Lounge soon!
In the meantime, feel free to join us on Thursday evenings for the Self Curation Event with @freedomexists, where you can get on the mic and talk about your post for everyone to hear!
Thanks again!