High speed videos (examined frame-by-frame) show that most lightning strikes are made up of multiple individual strokes. A typical strike is made of 3 or 4 strokes, though there may be more.[34]
Each re-strike is separated by a relatively large amount of time, typically 40 to 50 milliseconds. Re-strikes can cause a noticeable "strobe light" effect.
Lightning requires the electrical breakdown of a gas, so it cannot exist in a visual form in the vacuum of space. However, lightning has been observed within the atmospheres of other planets, such as Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. Lightning on Venus is still a controversial subject after decades of study...
I'm writing a paper on the possibility of harvesting space lighting, but the main question would be, does space lightning last longer then real lighting. My argument would be that air resistance cuases the channel which the current is traveling through to split. However in a vacuum, you would have a continuous channel much like an electron gun in a CRT tube.
In my system, there would be a base on the moon and a satalite orbiting the van allen belts on earth. The satalite would stream electrons to the base and the base would stream protons to the satalite to create a channel. Lunar dust is known to be positively charged on the day side, and the van allen belts have a mixed charge. If the connection was formed, would it last longer than traditional lightning on earth?
Would it be possible if you created some sort of plasma connection between the two charges. If so, could this be done using particle accelerators?
I realize the idea is highly unlikely, and I am by no means in the interest to build such a device, but more on the side to make an interesting paper. That being said in response to davven. There should be on average a steady state magnetic field, such that there is a way to direct the protons and electrons. Once electrons have been been boiled off in an electron gun, they shouldn't experience much "friction" so it shouldn't matter the distance it travels. The hardest part would be to create a steady stream, and perhaps for this reason, the stream might only work for short distances.
In response to zapperz. Most internet article describe ionized gas in space as a plasma. Hence when I refer to the electron and proton streams, they fall under the same category. And, like I said I know it would be very difficult to build such a connection between two streams, but if they did connect, would it have the same effect as lightning, such that a current would flow. I know that it wouldn't have the casdade effect, but I think it may be possible to extract energy from two charges in space.
The moon dust may be positively charged. But from this to a stream of protons it a very long way. How do you propose to use positively charged dust to create a stream of protons?The satalite would stream electrons to the base and the base would stream protons to the satalite to create a channel. Lunar dust is known to be positively charged on the day side, and the van allen belts have a mixed charge. If the connection was formed, would it last longer than traditional lightning on earth?
My boldest statement would be to say that if you could replicate the same conditions on Earth which cuase lightning, you would get the same thing in space. There are four things I could see happening; you would get some sort of glow (aurora) but not have a stable connection, you would get a stable connection but wouldn't create a flow, you would create a flow but it cuases an explosion, or you would create a steady flow which looks like some sort of plasma tube instead of lightning and your able to extract energy.
My understanding was that you don't need gas to have a current. But the whole idea was based somewhat off cathode rays.
"The gas ionization (or cold cathode) method of producing cathode rays used in Crookes tubes was unreliable, because it depended on the pressure of the residual air in the tube. Over time, the air was absorbed by the walls of the tube, and it stopped working.
A more reliable and controllable method of producing cathode rays was investigated by Hittorf and Goldstein,[citation needed] and rediscovered by Thomas Edison in 1880. A cathode made of a wire filament heated red hot by a separate current passing through it would release electrons into the tube by a process called thermionic emission. The first true electronic vacuum tubes, invented around 1906, used this hot cathode technique, and they superseded Crookes tubes. These tubes didn't need gas in them to work, so they were evacuated to a lower pressure, around 10−9 atm (10−4 P). The ionization method of creating cathode rays used in Crookes tubes is today only used in a few specialized gas discharge tubes such as krytrons."
Its just a thermodynamics project where we look into possible future energy sources. The main goal is to make the paper interesting. I was trying to think outside the box since most people are going to write about fusion and renewable energy.
The electrons initial acceleration when being fired from an electron gun is about 1E17 m/s^s.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=271682
Still less then 1 Kelvin. My hypothesis is that if it is moving towards a positve charge it will accelerate slightly more. I get the effect would be negligible but its enough so that I could say it happens. If the system did work, most of the energy would be from the current between the two charges. Again, I wasn't going for practicality, just something interesting.
Its just a thermodynamics project where we look into possible future energy sources. The main goal is to make the paper interesting. I was trying to think outside the box since most people are going to write about fusion and renewable energy.
The electrons initial acceleration when being fired from an electron gun is about 1E17 m/s^s.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=271682
Still less then 1 Kelvin. My hypothesis is that if it is moving towards a positve charge it will accelerate slightly more. I get the effect would be negligible but its enough so that I could say it happens. If the system did work, most of the energy would be from the current between the two charges. Again, I wasn't going for practicality, just something interesting.
I'm just going to build a black hole