Solar nebula lightning

A further important and yet incompletely resolved matter is the nature of the heating event in which chondrules formed. The experimental study of Cohen et al. (2004) shows that chondrules probably formed in a matter of minutes to hours. This implies a flash heating process (Boss, 1998), such as might be caused by shock-heating or lightning strikes in the solar nebula. If this is the case then chondrule melting temperatures represent transient temperatures rather than the ambient temperature of the solar nebula. 

Plasma comprises the majority of the universe the solar corona, solar wind, nebula, and Earth s ionosphere are all plasmas. The best known natural plasma phenomenon in Earth s atmosphere is lightning. The breakthrough experiments with this natural form of plasma were performed long ago by Benjamin Franklin (Fig. 1-1), which probably explains the special interest in plasma research in Philadelphia, where the author of the book works at the Drexel Plasma Institute (Drexel University). 

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