Scientists have created “quantum ball lightning” in the lab

Lightning and thunder go hand in hand. When you see a lightning bolt fly across the sky, you can be sure that you will hear a thunderclap shortly after that. But there is another natural phenomenon that occurs when lightning and thunder strike: Ball lightning. Now scientists have figured out a way to create it in a lab setting, potentially paving the way to much more stable fusion reactor designs.

The mysteries of ball lightning have remained mostly hidden for the past few centuries. Often appearing in the sky during thunderstorms, they have been the subject of many theories devised by many expert scientists over the years. But experts from Amherst College and Aalto University might have finally figured out how they work.

Based on the results of their experiments, the researchers were able to create a working quantum model by using what can be described as super-cooled dilute quantum gas. This resulted in a “complex knot” that appeared to be exactly like ball lightning. It came in the form of a known quantum object called a “Shankar skyrmion” which scientists first theorized in the late 1970s.