A team on a 10,300-foot New Mexico mountain launches rockets trailing copper tethers to trigger lightning strikes from passing storm clouds. The controlled strikes hit a sensor-equipped bunker, letting researchers study how lightning forms and flows in ways natural storms won't let them.
Alright, in moments we are going to measure the lightning coming out of here. We are at the top of the mountain, 10,300 feet up in New Mexico. We are lightning hunters now, or at least lightning measurers, and, uh, it's gonna be awesome. We got some people in a bunker up there. Oh, you can hear it. There's rockets right up there. They're going to shoot straight up when these clouds get over there, dragging a wire. It's copper wrapped around something, I forget now, maybe lead. And you're gonna— you shoot it up before lightning would be produced on its own to try to make your own lightning, and then it comes straight down into there, and we're going to measure it and learn about it.
