What causes a Lichtenberg figure?

In LS when struck by lightning, the electrical current usually passes outside the body and causes characteristic superficial linear burns resembling a tree, known as Lichtenberg figures.

What does your skin look like after lightning strike?

They are called Lichtenberg figures, or lightning flowers. The electrical pattern was named after the German physicist Georg Lichtenberg who discovered them. The rare pattern looks like tree branches, roots or a fern leaf that spread over the skin. In some of these pictures, it looks like a faded henna tattoo.

What does a lightning strike do to your skin?

The heat produced when lightning moves over the skin can produce burns, but the current moving through the body is of greatest concern. While the ability to survive any lightning strike is related to immediate medical attention, the amount of current moving through the body is also a factor.

Why do lightning strike scars look like that?

Blood vessels bursting from the electric discharge and heat might create something called a Lichtenberg figure on your skin. This is a pattern of scars that branches out across your body like the limbs of a tree, likely tracing the path the electricity took as it travelled through you.

What are Lichtenberg figures and how are they created?

Technically known as Lichtenberg Figures, they were created by carefully trapping and discharging millions of volts of electrical charge inside pieces of clear acrylic using a high-energy particle accelerator. These complex, permanent figures are formed when the trapped charges suddenly escape in a brief, lightning-like discharge.

What are Lichtenberg figures and how are they produced?

” Lichtenberg figures ” are branching, tree-like patterns that are created by the passage of high voltage electrical discharges along the surface, or inside, electrically insulating materials (dielectrics).

How are Lichtenberg figures created?

Lichtenberg figures are branching structures formed by an electrical discharge on or inside of an insulator. The structures take their name from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg , the physicist who discovered and studied them. Although you can make your own Lichtenberg figure using polyethylene sheets and talcum powder,…

How is a Lichtenberg figure created?

” Lichtenberg figures ” are branching, tree-like patterns that are created by the passage of high voltage electrical discharges along the surface, or inside, electrically insulating materials ( dielectrics) .