Severe lightning storm over Northern British Columbia just after dusk. You can clearly see the purple fringing on the edge of the lightning bolts. The lightning itself emits pure white light however the discharge though the atmosphere actually creates a plasma and the purple colour comes from this ionisation of the atmospheric gases. Ionisation is the same phenomena that causes the colour we see in polar Auroras.
Plasma is neither solid, liquid, nor gas, rather it is a fourth state of matter. It is quite rare on earth however over 99% of the matter in the universe exists as plasma, held within stars or as superhot interstellar matter. We had a beautiful display of the storm looking back towards it out at Ness Lake as the cell passed mostly to the east of us and we avoided the flooding rain they received in town.
