At very young age, I was often labelled as the inquisitive, more reserved child in the room. Nature and its infinite sandbox of wonders was and still is my greatest joy. Perhaps the greatest of all natural phenomena that my young eyes were so strongly drawn to, were the summer time lightning displays which lit up the dark African sky of the high-altitude city of Johannesburg, South Africa, during the days of heavy rain showers. Lightning the likes of which most people I've met have never seen. Mammoth webs of purple-blue streaks of electricity that shot across from all directions...their trajectory totally unpredictable...their origin totally ambiguous. The majestic display of such immense energy, such shear might that makes your spine turn ice cold, for me at least, was the ultimate conformation that someone upstairs called the shots. Where does it come from? Can it be predicted? If so, how? Is it near or far? What don't I know that I don't know that I should know which I don't? How does the weather man know that there may be lightning tomorrow? These are the questions which occupied my mind when it came to those frightening laser beams that seemed to show up without any provocation or without any invite - daggers carving into the canvas of the atmosphere.
As a 4 year old kid, I had not yet been acquainted with Algebraic functions. However, the equation that lightning equals to no power for the night was unequivocally understood, as well as the consequences that followed. Lightning was able to commandeer your life. This understanding that nature does not ask your permission or operate according to your chosen hour of convenience, generated an enormous sense of respect for nature. Lightning for me, as far as I was concerned, set a distinct line in the sand (amongst other powerful displays of nature) between man's generally asinine anthropocentric perspective that man is superior to nature… and reality. To my dismay, I never seemed to ever get satisfactory answers to what I thought were rather standard questions.I eventually lost interest with anything to do with lightning, but never lost respect for it. In fact years later, during my military service, waste-high in mud during the cold, rainy and bitter winters in the Golan Heights, I feared lightning more than any other time in my life. In an almost half-humorous way, I felt like I was causing friction with the cosmos, foolishly standing outside on guard duty under the umbrella of a lightning concert in the sky, and knowing full-well that the probability of being fried by a bolt was a heck of a lot higher than most people on such a day.
Kindly jump three years… In my first year at Reichman University, as part of our mandatory syllabus, all students took a course in earth science and systems, taught by non-other than atmospheric physicist, Professor Yoav Yair (Dean of the school of sustainability), who leads the ILAN-ES experiment of the Rakia Space Mission. It was in this course that my fascination for space in general was rekindled, as well as my fascination for lightning. The study of lightning, I came to understand, is critical in ascertaining the connections between the characteristics of storms, convections, atmospheric precipitation and the level of severity in weather.
At the end of the academic year, 2nd and 3rd third year sustainability students were offered a once in a life time opportunity to apply to be part of a student operations team that would work under Professor Yair and take part in the ILAN-ES experiment (one of specially selected and chosen experiments) as part of the RAKIA SPACE MISSION. The ILAN-ES experiment that will be conducted on the international space station next year. ILAN-ES experiment aims to study electrical phenomena which occur above thunderstorms, namely Transient Luminous Events: blue jets spreading from cloud tops to the stratosphere, large jets from clouds all the way to the ionosphere, and red sprites and ELVES which start above tropospheric level of thunderstorms inside the mesosphere. This will be a significant milestone in the Israeli scientific community. This will be the second time in almost two decades that an Israeli will be sent to space.
I for one, a student part of the operational team, am extremely fortunate, grateful and excited to be part of this "enLIGHTNING" experience.
B. Allan Wallace once said that life is a flash of lightning in the dark of night. It is a brief time of tremendous potential. Well, the potential for the ILAN-ES experiment has no bounds.
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