The activity was spearheaded by Marcelo Saba, a researcher at Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE), and Diego Rhamon, a Ph.D. candidate. According to his team, the image featured a negatively charged lightning bolt nearing the ground at 370 kilometers per second.
"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, said Saba in a press release.
The final shot before the connection was obtained 25 thousandths of a second before the lightning struck one of the buildings.
The image was featured on the cover page of the December edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, along with an article related to the research. Saba began studying lightning with high-speed cameras in 2003, building one of the largest databases of videos of lightning filmed at high speed.
Advanced equipment that detailed the lighting discharge
The team made use of a camera that captures 40,000 frames per second. The high-speed equipment allowed researchers to evaluate the impact of such strikes, especially when adequate protective measures are not followed. In this specific case, a fault in the installation had exposed the area, and the impact of a 30,000-amp discharge did substantial damage.
"A staggering total of 31 lightning precursor channels (called leaders) were launched from nearby buildings in an attempt to intercept the downcoming negative leaders."