Lightning Hits SUV While Driving in Russia (Video)

What happens when lightning strikes a vehicle? The answer, gleaned from anecdotal observations, is all the way from "Nothing" to "Wow! What a mess . . . my car is a disaster."

Electrically speaking, at lightning's higher frequencies, currents are carried mostly on the outside of conducting objects. A thick copper wire or a hollow-wall metal pipe will carry most of the lightning on outer surfaces. This phenomenon is called "skin effect." The same holds true for lightning when it strikes metal vehicles: the outer surface carries most of the electricity. The persons inside this steel box can be likened to protected by a partial Faraday cage.



Some general safety issues vehicles and lightning: click here

Source: dailyfunmedia lightningsafety

Mysterious weather phenomenon 'SPRITES' captured in detail by astronauts ISS

It is a rare glimpse into space weather that has never been captured on film before.

This amazing Nasa image shows a 'sprite', a flash of red and blue light which flashes for a thousandth of a second.

Sprite glows red (inset) in this image captured by astronauts on the International Space Station on April 30, 2012. Credit: Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center.

High above the clouds during thunderstorms, some 50 miles above Earth a different kind of lightning dances. Bursts of red and blue light, known as "sprites," flash for a scant one thousandth of a second. They are often only visible to those in flight above a storm, and happen so quickly you might not even see it unless you chance to be looking directly at it. One hard-to-reach place that gets a good view of sprites is the International Space Station. On April 30, 2012, astronauts on the ISS captured the signature red flash of a sprite, offering the world and researchers a rare opportunity to observe one.

This is the first color image of a sprite ever captured. It was taken in 1994 by a NASA-sponsored project through the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) that flew special cameras on two aircraft flown out of Oklahoma City. Credit: NASA/UAF.

The basic understanding of sprites is that they are related to lightning, in which a neutrally charged cloud discharges some of the electricity to ground. Normally negative charge is carried from the cloud to the ground, but about one out of every ten times it's positive charge -- and that leaves the top of the cloud negatively charged. With this one in ten chance, the electric field above the cloud is "just right" to produce the sprite, an electrical discharge 50 miles above the thunderstorm.

Source: nasagov