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Fact of the Day More Information Natural glass is called fulgurite which comes from the Latin for lightning.
The most amazing aspect of this phenomenon is the map it leaves behind. When glass is created, the path of the lightning is frozen in place and looks sort of like the roots of a tree. These hollow glass tubes have been nicknamed petrified lightning. Small pieces of fulgurite are even made into jewelry.
In 1945 it was discovered that a nuclear bomb also creates a kind of glass shield around the crater (at least when detonated in the desert).
Interestingly enough, lightning strikes upward. The circuit starts in the clouds but when it reaches the earth the circuit is complete and the electricity flows up in a thunderous roar (100,000,000 volts).
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