Scientists used a camera that records at 40,000 frames per second to capture a novel photo that reveals how lightning rods behave.
The amazing image shows the moment several lightning rods attempt to connect with the lightning that is thundering down from the sky above.
Marcelo Saba, a researcher at Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE), and Ph.D. candidate Diego Rahomonn were fortunate to have set their camera up in exactly the right spot to capture the image for their research paper.
“The image was captured on a summer evening in São José dos Campos [Brazil] while a negatively charged lightning bolt was nearing the ground at 230 miles (370 kilometers) per second,” explains Saba in a press release.
“When it was a few dozen meters from ground level, lightning rods and tall objects on the tops of nearby buildings produced positive upward discharges, competing to connect to the downward strike.
“The final image prior to the connection was obtained 25 thousandths of a second before the lightning hit one of the buildings.”