New York City sky lights up bright blue after Queens power plant explosion

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

New York City sky lights up bright blue after Queens power plant explosion

Police investigating transformer explosion at Con Edison plant in the Astoria neighbourhood

Erum Salam in Queens and Kate Lyons
Fri 28 Dec 2018 03.11 GMT

A huge explosion at a New York power plant has turned the sky above parts of the city a bright blue-green.

Many Manhattanites were stunned when the sky over parts of Queens started to glow a bright neon blue shortly after 9pm on Thursday night.

Scores posted footage of the glowing skyline to social media, saying the sky was “bright as day”. Footage of the scene showed the sky flickering a bright blue-green for several minutes.

The strange sight was caused by an explosion at the Con Edison power plant in Queens, with the New York Police Department officially confirming on Twitter that the cause of the remarkable sight was the explosion and there was “no evidence of extraterrestrial activity”.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/28/new-york-sky-bright-blue-lights-explosion-astoria-power-plant-queens

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[mnmoderatedem]

1. it was clearly alien spacecraft landing

hopefully trump supporters got on board and flew back to wherever the hell they came from.

[obamanut2012]

2. Who ya gonna call?

GHOSTBUSTERS!

[Lucky Luciano]

3. Here is the video I took while talking to my six year old son.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/106824407

[localroger]

4. While we are laughing about it not being ET's...

I would ask, since that isn't exactly a normal color for a fire, exactly what was burning and what it might be putting into the air.

[sl8]

5. The blue light was caused by electrical arcing.

The arc in arc welding can produce ozone, nitric oxide, and nitrogen dioxide. I assume arcing like this would do the same, probably more so, since it's not shielded from the atmosphere like welding arcs typically are.

That's apart from actual combustion byproducts.

From https://abc7ny.com/electrical-arc-turns-night-sky-blue-in-nyc/4977959/

'Electrical arc' turns night sky blue in NYC

ASTORIA, Queens (WABC) -- Con Edison says an electrical fault at a substation in Astoria, Queens caused an electrical arc Thursday night, lighting up the sky over New York City while causing some flight delays and scattered power outages.

...

Initially thought to be a transformer explosion, Con Ed issued a statement on Friday morning explaining what happened:

"The electrical fault on the 138,000-volt equipment caused a sustained electrical arc flash that was visible across a wide area. The affected equipment was isolated to a single section within the substation."

An electric arc is defined as "a visible plasma discharge between two electrodes that is caused by electrical current ionizing gasses in the air." Electric arcs occur in nature in the form of lightning.

...

More at link.

[smirkymonkey]

7. Eerie, but kind of cool.

Hopefully nobody was hurt and no lasting damage was done.

[Renew Deal]

6. Would "they" tell you if it really was aliens?

ConEd used the same excuse used in Ghostbusters.