Mysterious blue light: a photographer wanted to "catch" the stars, but captured a strange electromagnetic phenomenon

An astrophotographer was trying to create a frame-by-frame shot of the trails of stars behind Mount Xiannairi in Sichuan Province, China. However, he accidentally caught a strange blue light emitted by an avalanche.

Shengyu Li captured the moment when a block of ice broke away from the mountain and caused a small avalanche. At this time, a blue light appeared, which may be a strange electromagnetic phenomenon, IflScience writes.

"We have not found any previously documented cases of such an event, which makes this discovery both exciting and intriguing. Our initial hypothesis is that the luminescence may be the result of illumination caused by friction during the crushing of the ice," said photographer Shengyu Li.

However, it turned out that a similar case had already been documented just a few weeks earlier, also on the mountain during an avalanche.

Scientists are inclined to believe that this is triboluminescence, namely, the spontaneous emission of light by mechanical force activated by friction.

According to scientists, another form of luminescence occurs when the mechanical force is sufficient to break the bonds of the material, leading to destruction. This glow is called fracture stress mechanoluminescence or fracture triboluminescence, experts say.

According to SpaceWeather.com, previous scientific papers have noted electromagnetic radiation (EME) associated with the growth of cracks in ice and cracks during mechanical stress.

"The main cause of EME through cracks in natural ice is the so-called "frozen" or "intrinsic" electric field, which is always present in both sea and freshwater ice. This electric field is generated by the spatial unevenness of the concentration of ions dissolved in the ice volume," the scientific article explains.

Scientists explain that mobile ions trapped by the mass of ice create the transportation of electric charge and its own electric field in the ice. This charge accumulation is small but can increase when cracks appear quickly.

"When a mass of ice is split by a crack that grows rapidly in a direction perpendicular to the electric field, the field generates two surface charges of opposite sign on opposite surfaces of the crack. Such a large potential difference can easily explain why the intrinsic electric field dominates the causes of EMP from cracks in ice," the scientific article goes on to say.

However, the scientists emphasize that such a glow recorded by cameras in the mountains is a very rare phenomenon.

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