Further insight into the nature of ball-lightning-like atmospheric pressure plasmoids.

Known since antiquity, ball lightning is a natural, long-lived plasma-like phenomenon associated with thunderstorms and is not well understood due to its rarity and unpredictability. A recently discovered laboratory phenomenon with striking similarity to ball lightning is observed when a high-power spark is discharged from a cathode protruding from a grounded electrolyte solution. Whereas several investigations of these long-lived plasmas have been reported over the past decade, the underlying chemical and physical processes are still unknown.