  In order to investigate the hypothesis that dust aggregates were transformed
to meteoritic chondrules by nebular lightning, we exposed silicatic and
metallic dust samples to electric discharges with energies of 120 to 500 J in
air at pressures between 10 and 10^5 Pa. The target charges consisted of
powders of micrometer-sized particles and had dimensions of mm. The dust
samples generally fragmented leaving the major fraction thermally unprocessed.
A minor part formed sintered aggregates of 50 to 500 micrometer. In a few
experiments melt spherules having sizes smaller than 180 micrometer in diameter
(and, generally, interior voids) were formed; the highest spherule fraction was
obtained with metallic Ni. Our experiments indicate that chondrule formation by
electric current or by particle bombardment inside a discharge channel is
unlikely.
