Tech

Blue lights before earthquake? Scientists explain this strange phenomenon

Published

8 months ago

Farwa

Several videos on social media have surfaced from Morocco showing a blue flashlight emanating from the horizon, shortly before a potent 6.8 earthquake which struck southwest of Marrakech last Friday, leaving nearly 3,000 people dead and over 3,000 injured.

Rescue mission by a number of countries in the North African nation is currently underway as emergency services are searching rubbles for bodies and survivors.

Earlier, a French expert also issued warnings about the aftershocks, despite the country not being in the “most active seismological region”.

CCTV on social media showed powerful flashes of light just before the shaking. Experts have termed these luminous phenomena real however, they are still scratching their heads about what causes them.

John Derr, a retired geophysicist who worked at the US Geological Survey told CNN that these different colours of lights are definitely real.

“Seeing EQL depends on darkness and other favorability factors,” Derr, who worked on these earthquake lights explained.

#MoroccoEathquake
Strange blue flashes appeared in the sky just before the occurrence of the Morocco's earthquake.
Blue light was also seen in the sky before the earthquakes in Hatay Feb2023 and in Mexico Sep2021
Initial reports posited that these luminous manifestations, known… pic.twitter.com/z1jM25iKtU
— Rula El Halabi (@Rulaelhalabi) September 10, 2023

He said the recent “video from Morocco shared online looked like the earthquake lights caught on security cameras during a 2007 quake in Pisco, Peru.”

Juan Antonio Lira Cacho, a physics professor at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Peru and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, who has studied the phenomenon, said video and security cameras have made studying earthquake lights easier.

Different earthquake lights

There are several types of lights as mentioned by a paper coauthored by Derr and published in the 2019 edition of the Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics.

the lights appear as normal lighting or sometimes it may look like a band same as a polar aurora. They may also look as floating in midair. One of the kind also includes a flame-like emanation from the ground.

To make sense of this, Derr and his colleagues collected all the concerned information from earthquake lights as old as the year 1600.

Their work was published in 2014 in a paper in the journal Seismological Research Letters.

Their findings revealed that some 80% of the earthquake lights were found in earthquakes of over 5.0 magnitudes. According to the findings, the occurrence was witnessed shortly before or during the earthquake, visible up 600 kilometres (372.8 miles) from the epicentre.

Most of the time, earthquakes take place in the nearby convergence areas of tectonic plates. However, the study found that in most of cases, luminous phenomena occurred within tectonic plates, rather than at their boundaries.

According to reports, these lights are most likely to be visible near rift valleys, places where Earth’s crust had been forced apart.

Theory explaining earthquake lights

A theory was put forth by Friedemann Freund, Derr’s collaborator, an adjunct professor at San Jose University and a former Nasa researcher.

Freund told CNN that when certain defects or impurities in crystals in rocks are put under mechanical stress — such as during activity between tectonic plates — they instantly break apart and generate electricity.

He noted that rock is an insulator that, when mechanically stressed, becomes a semiconductor.

He added: “Prior to earthquakes, huge volumes of rock — hundreds of thousands of cubic kilometres of rocks in the Earth’s crust — are being stressed and the stresses are causing shifting of the grain, the mineral grains relative (to) each other.”

“It’s like switching on a battery, generating electrical charges that can flow out of the stressed rocks into and through unstressed rocks. The charges travel fast, at up to around 200 metres per second,” he explained in a 2014 article for The Conversation.

Some other explanations also state that static electricity is produced by the fracturing of rock and radon emanation, among many others.

There is no agreement on this phenomenon and this mystery is being studied by the scientists.

Freund expected that there may come a time when it would be possible to use earthquake lights, or the electric charge that causes them, to help forecast the approach of a major earthquake.

Latest News

Pakistan launches first-ever lunar mission with iCube Qamar

Published

3 days ago

Farwa

China’s Chang’E6 spacecraft carried Pakistan’s first satellite mission to the moon, iCube Qamar, into orbit.

The Institute of Space Technology states that IST worked with Pakistan’s national space agency SUPARCO and China’s Shanghai University SJTU to design and develop the satellite ICUBE-Q.

The launch event was streamed live on both Chinese state television and the IST website.

Two optical cameras are carried by the ICUBE-Q orbiter to capture images of the lunar surface. ICUBE-Q has now been successfully integrated into the Chang’e6 mission after qualification and testing.

The sixth in China’s sequence of lunar exploration missions is called Chang’e6.

China’s Lunar Mission, Chang’6, will land on the Moon’s far side in order to gather surface samples and bring them back to Earth for analysis.

Pakistan would benefit from the mission since it will carry a Pakistan CubeSat Satellite, called iCube-Q, which was created by IST.

Small satellites known as “CubeSats” are typified by their uniform design and compact size. They are built in the form of a cube and are made up of modular parts that follow predetermined dimensions.

These satellites are regularly placed in orbit for a variety of uses and only weigh a few kilos.

Cubesats are primarily used to support space exploration education, technology development, and scientific research. Many different missions are carried out by these satellites, such as telecommunication, astronomy, remote sensing, Earth observation, atmospheric research, and technological demonstration.

CubeSats provide universities, research centers, and commercial organizations with the chance to engage in space missions and acquire important data for scientific advancement and innovation because of their small size and very low cost when compared to regular satellites.

They act as test beds for novel ideas and technology, opening up space to a wider spectrum of users and encouraging cooperation amongst members of the space community.

Latest News

The green colour of WhatsApp ‘angers’ some users.

Published

1 week ago

Farwa

After changing its display colour from blue to green, WhatsApp, which was before well-known for its blue motif, caused its users to hold divergent views.

New upgrades to the Meta app always spark a lot of discussion, regardless of how big or small the changes are.

Still, Meta-owned WhatsApp hopes that these modifications would “make it more accessible as well as easier to use” and offer a “modern, new experience” with relation to the updated display color.

A statement from the firm claimed that they had altered WhatsApp’s “looks and feels, including spacing, colors, icons, and more.”

Both iOS and Android users can now view the new WhatsApp update; the green tint on the latter has changed from the previous version.

However, iPhone users will notice that every display element, including the chat-list window and status bar, has changed with the recent design update. WhatsApp used to have a blue color scheme on iPhones.

Furthermore, the formerly blue links shared within the app are now displayed in green.

In addition, WhatsApp has made other improvements to improve its user experience outside of the color shift.

Latest News

Punjab will provide fifty thousand solar kits.

Published

1 month ago

Farwa

On Tuesday,Tuesday, while presiding over a review meeting on solar household solutions, the CM gave the order to begin the installation of one kilowatt solar systems right away. She also gave the order to introduce the newest solar systems.

Phase-I solar systems would be balloted for by 50,000 protected users who use 100 units each month, at a cost of Rs 12.6 billion.

Home-based solar systems will eventually be made available to other Punjabi consumers. A solar system will consist of a battery, inverter, sophisticated solar plate, and more related accessories.

Attending the meeting were Provincial Information Minister Azma Zahid Bukhari, MPA Sania Ashiq, Former Senator Pervaiz Rashid, Chief Secretary, Chairman Planning and Development, Secretaries of Energy, Finance, and Punjab Power Development Board (PPDB) Managing Director, in addition to other pertinent officers.

During his inaugural speech as Punjab’s chief minister, Maryam Nawaz outlined her five-year plan and promised to develop a strategy for customers who use fewer than 300 units of power.

According to Maryam Nawaz, the PML-N’s main goals for her term will be to provide jobs, healthcare, and education.

She said, “I am working on a plan to provide solar panels to consumers using up to 300 units of electricity or less in installments.”