April 16, 2009
By NASA/CXC/SAO/P.Slane, et al.

EIFFEL LIGHTNING BOLT: Believe it or not, bolts of lightning are shooting out of the Eiffel Tower. Photographer Hakim Atek caught it happening on May 25th:

Photo Details: Nikon D80 + Nikkor 18-135mm, ISO 100, f/8, 30s, +2.0ev

"I saw some lightning out the window of my home in Paris," says Atek. "So I set up a tripod and pointed my camera (a Nikon D80) at the Eiffel Tower. I never expected to get such an amazing picture."

But did the Tower really make its own lightning? The surprising answer is "yes."

"The upward branching in this photo shows that the Eiffel Tower actually initiated the discharge," says lightning researcher Richard Blakeslee of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. "In other words, instead of starting in the cloud and coming to ground, this flash started when the tower 'launched' a leader that propagated upward toward the cloud (which still served as the source of the electric field needed to get the process going). As the leader ascended, it branched out. Eventually one of the branches reached a region of sufficient charge to 'short out the cloud' and produce the return stroke pictured above."

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