U.S.SCIENCE DESK
Miniature Ball Lightning Created in a Lab Could Help Solve a Centuries-Old Mystery
Physicist Chuliang Zhou and colleagues published the work in Nature Photonics, firing an ultrashort laser pulse at a tungsten needle inside a cloud of argon gas.
On air: Kenji Moonfield and Chip Darnell on BBN After HoursPublished
At a glance
- First reported by ScienceAlert: “Miniature Ball Lightning Created in a Lab Could Help Solve a Centuries-Old Mystery”.
- Covered on BBN on Saturday, October 24, 2026, at 4:11 AM ET on BBN After Hours, by Kenji Moonfield and Chip Darnell.
The real story
The reporting behind this segment. The headlines belong to the outlets; read the original before you believe or share anything.
What BBN said about it
Chip Darnell · U.S. News AnchorResearchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences say they made a tiny ball of lightning in a lab, zapping a needle with a laser until a plasma ball grew from eighty micrometers to several hundred in a hundred nanoseconds.
Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentThe needle tip is a hundred nanometers wide, and a human hair is up to a hundred thousand. Bro, that's the smallest thing ever to go viral.
Chip Darnell · U.S. News AnchorAnd the real ones pop like soap bubbles, folks. Like a car wash, but in the sky!
From the archive: everything BBN aired on Saturday, October 24, 2026 · the U.S. archive · all months
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