Begin planetary evacuation immediately. This is not a drill. Proceed to your designated evacuation points and await dropship liftoff.
At least, that's how I'm responding to this scene shot by Martin Rietze at the Sakurajima volcano in Japan. Why are these two events taking place in the same location? Physicists Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell write:
Why lightning occurs even in common thunderstorms remains a topic of research, and the cause of volcanic lightning is even less clear. Surely, lightning bolts help quench areas of opposite but separated electric charges. One hypothesis holds that catapulting magma bubbles or volcanic ash are themselves electrically charged, and by their motion create these separated areas. Other volcanic lightning episodes may be facilitated by charge-inducing collisions in volcanic dust.