Over the centuries, Wall-O'-U-Uteps puzzled both scientists and travelers. According to folklore, this is a product of fairies, demons and spirits. More recently, scientists attribute Will-O'-WISP, otherwise known as Ignis Fatuus, which means “stupid flame” in Latin, with more earthly origin. Nevertheless, questions remain about how these ghostly blue lights periodically arise.
Now researchers write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNA) Offered a more-based solution for this centuries-old puzzle-bubbles of methane spontaneously ignited in the process called microlithic.
Burning blue testament of a bubble or methane bubbles?
While previous generations may have turned to supernatural explanations, there is currently a strong consensus in the scientific community, which connects the flickering blue light with methane released organic matter during decay. It is believed that the methane lights when it interacts with oxygen in the air, producing a “cool flame”.
Nevertheless, it is not fully clear how the methane lights up in the first place, since the energy necessary to launch this process is too high to arise naturally. Previous attempts to explain this considered phosphin or static electricity, but they remain unproven.
Instead, researchers written in PNA examined the phenomenon investigated in an earlier study (published in Science Achievements), which shows that tiny drops of water can accumulate a charge, which is then produced spontaneously – a process known as Microlightning.
“Micopoling between methane micropouses offers a natural ignition mechanism for methane oxidation in environmental conditions,” the researchers explained in the PNAS study.
“This discovery maintains a long-term connection between electrified interfaces and a spontaneous cool flame, and it provides an physically sound explanation of the occurrence of Ignis Fatuus,” continued the authors of the study.
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Methannoy manufacturers of microbumblers
To check the hypothesis, the researchers built a micropoudy generator that generated air methane bubbles and blew them into a pot of water. Using high -speed visualization, the team observed “brief, localized outbreaks”, lasts less than milliseconds, which, as they explain, “are consistent with electric discharges”.
The reason why the microposes were capable of accumulating the charge is that from the curved boundary that exists between gas and liquid – the larger the curve, the more an electric field on the border or “section of the section”. Discharging occurs when two micropoureders with opposite charges approach each other, which, in turn, can lead to the fact that the gas lights a “cool flame” (weak blue luminity characteristic of Will-O'-The-Wisp).
“These discharges initiate non -methane non -methane oxidation, causing luminescence and measurable heat in environmental conditions,” the researchers explained in the study.
The team checked the reaction of ordinary old air bubbles and found that they also launched flashes.
This, according to them, suggests that the reaction is the result of the interaction between two opposite charged particles and is not connected with the gas itself, although the methane, by the visible, enhances the intensity of reactions and increases the frequency.
According to the researchers, these results can be the missing part of the puzzle and help explain how metathan in swamps and water -bearing lands is able to spontaneously produce blue luminaries.
“Over the centuries, weak blue flame, known as Ignis Fatuus or Will-O'-The-Wisps, danced over swamps, cemeteries and water-fingers,” they explained in the study.
Addition: “Our results offer a scientific basis for the IGNIS Fatuus and reveal a general mechanism with which electrified interfaces can stimulate oxidizing and recovery reactions in natural environments without the need for external ignition sources.”
Other explanations for Will-O'-WISP
But this is not the only explanation that recently put forward. Researchers writing in a reviewed Brazilian journal. New Quim Affirm that Will-O'-WISP can be “extinct”, indicating the fact that in our time there were few reliable observations.
Instead, paper statesThe old -fashioned torches, carrying travelers, could act as a source of ignition, and “the rejection of fire in favor of night lightning may contain the secret of this mystery of the extinction of Ignis Falus.”
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