What causes lightning? Why is there lightning?

"Lightning" is a commonplace phenomenon for us. In summer, whenever the sky is cloudy, thunder rumbles and lightning flashes. But if you are asked, "How is lightning formed?" "It's going to be difficult.

Before the 18th century, in ancient China, it was believed that thunder and lightning were made by thunder and lightning. Westerners believe that thunder and lightning are the result of God's wrath, and that whoever does something bad, God uses it to punish him. As a result, people have always had a fear of thunder and lightning.

Some people of insight who do not believe in God try to explain the cause of thunder and lightning. The first to discover the mystery of thunder and lightning was the American scientist Benjamin Franklin. He used a kite experiment to prove that electricity in the sky is the same as electricity on the earth, and that "lightning is a spark of electricity."

But to this day, scientists still haven't fully figured out how lightning is generated. Why do churning clouds carry a large number of positive and negative charges? Asking for an answer to this question is much more difficult than flying a kite during a thunderstorm and directing lightning to the ground.

In order to unravel the mystery of lightning, scientists put balloons into thunder clouds for detection; send planes to fly around and even through thunder clouds; Trigger lightning with rockets, and so on. But through these activities, the knowledge of lightning is still negligible.

Scientists have found that in most cases, lightning clouds are more than 3 kilometers thick before lightning can occur. The upper part of the cloud tends to be positively charged, and the bottom of the cloud is negatively charged.

When the electric field between the positive and negative charges is strong enough, it breaks through the air and produces lightning. In general, the thicker the clouds, the more intense the thunder and lightning. But what exactly drives the separation of positive and negative charges?

Many scientists believe that the rain may be the cause. They explained that falling large raindrops or ice pucks carry a negative charge, and positively charged particles like small dust particles and ice crystals accumulate in the upper part of the cloud, resulting in a positive charge in the upper part of the cloud and a negative charge in the lower part.

An electric field is generated that is strong enough to cause lightning. But this explanation is also far-fetched, because lightning often occurs before rainfall, not all after or during rainfall. In addition, it is not possible to explain why lightning occurs during volcanic eruptions.

As a result, another view has been put forward: the charge of thunder clouds is generated outside the clouds, and the excess positive charges in the atmosphere are absorbed into the upper clouds, which in turn attract the negative charges in the atmosphere above the clouds, and these negative charges are attached to the cloud particles that are constantly carried down by the air currents. The separation of positive and negative charges is precisely the violent air currents that move up and down these up and down at work.

However, this hypothesis has not been proven. It seems that it is not so easy to explain this natural phenomenon, and a better understanding of the inner workings of lightning clouds is needed to satisfactorily explain the lightning phenomenon. But even if this problem is solved, there are other issues that need to be clarified.

For example, why do lightning bolts often zigzag in a strange shape? (Of course, there is also a kind of ball lightning, which is also a "mystery") Why does lightning happen more on land than on water? Why does lightning always happen in the summer and not in the winter?

Why does lightning usually destroy objects at heights, but not always?

Storm clouds are usually charged, with negative charges at the bottom and positive charges at the top, and they also induce a positive charge on the ground, causing them to follow the clouds as if they were shadows. Positive and negative charges attract each other, but air is not a good conductor. Positive charges on the ground run to the tops of trees, hills, tall buildings, and even the human body in an attempt to meet the negatively charged clouds; The negatively charged branch-like antennae on the clouds stretch downwards and get closer to the ground as they go downward.

Finally, the positive and negative charges finally overcome the air barrier and connect. A huge electric current surged from the ground to the clouds along a conductive airway, producing a bright and dazzling "flash" This is lightning.

Strong discharge between cloudsBecause the positive and negative charges between clouds need to find a way to neutralize, so when they are close, the air will be broken down, and a strong discharge will be generated, which is the lightning we see.

Storm clouds usually produce electric charges, with yin electricity at the bottom and yang electricity at the top, and also a positive charge on the ground, which follows the clouds like a shadow.

How is lightning formed and what is ball lightning? Explain the principle under 3D animation.

The process of lightning.

If we add a very high voltage between the two electrodes and bring them closer together. When two electrodes are brought close to each other, an electric spark occurs between them, which is known as "arc discharge".

The lightning produced by thunderstorm clouds is very similar to the arc discharge mentioned above, except that the lightning is fleeting, while the sparks between the electrodes can exist for a long time. Because the high voltage between the two electrodes can be artificially maintained for a long time, it is difficult to replenish the charge in a thundercloud immediately after discharge. When a certain amount of charged is accumulated, a strong electric field is formed between different parts of the cloud or between the cloud and the ground.

The electric field strength can reach several thousand volt centimeters on average, and up to 10,000 volt centimeters in local areas. The electric field is strong enough to penetrate the atmosphere inside and outside the clouds, so that dazzling flashes of light are triggered between the clouds and the ground, or between different parts of the clouds and between different cloud masses. This is what is often referred to as lightning.

A lightning bolt seen with the naked eye, the process is very complicated. When a thundercloud moves somewhere, the middle and lower part of the cloud is a strong negative charge center, and the underlying surface opposite the cloud base becomes a positive charge center, forming a strong electric field between the cloud base and the ground. When the charge accumulates more and more and the electric field becomes stronger and stronger, a section of air column that is strongly ionized in the atmosphere first appears at the base of the cloud, which is called a cascade pilot.

This ionization gas column extends to the ground step by step, each step step pilot is a dull light column with a diameter of about 5 meters, a length of 50 meters, and a current of about 100 amperes, it stretches out to the ground at a high speed of about 150,000 meters and seconds on average, and when it is about 5-50 meters from the ground, the ground will suddenly strike upward, and the channel of the return attack is from the ground to the bottom of the cloud, and the ionization channel opened up along the above-mentioned cascade pilot. The first blitzkrieg was the first blitzkrieg from the ground to the bottom of the cloud at a higher speed of 50,000 kilometers per second, emitting a brilliant pillar of light that lasted 40 microseconds and passed through more than 10,000 amperes. After a few seconds, a dim pillar of light from the clouds, carrying a huge current, gallops to the ground along the path of the first blitz, called the straight pilot, when it is about 5-50 meters from the ground, the ground then hits back upward, and then forms a bright and incomparably bright pillar of light, which is the second blitz.

Then it was like the second time.

Three or four blitzes. It usually consists of 3-4 blitz strikes to form a lightning process. A lightning process lasts about a second, in this short time, a huge amount of electrical energy will be released on the narrow lightning channel, thus forming a strong **, generating a shock wave, and then forming a sound wave to spread around, which is thunder or "thunder".

Thunder and lightning occur at the same time, is due to a discharge phenomenon between clouds with different charges or between clouds and the earth, when the distance between clouds with different charges is reduced to a certain distance due to movement, the strong potential difference between the positive and negative charges breaks down the air and instantaneously discharges, the discharge spark produced during discharge is the lightning we see, and the sound produced during discharge is thunder.

In the same way, when the charged cloud is moving, the corresponding place on the ground generates an induced charge, and if the distance between the cloud and the ground or a tall object on the ground is small, the air between the cloud and the object is broken down and an instantaneous discharge occurs to produce thunder.

We see lightning and then hear thunder, because light travels much faster than sound, so we see lightning and then hear thunder.

The reason why there is lightning is because of the strong electrical discharge phenomenon between clouds, between clouds and ground, or between parts of the cloud body.

When a thunderstorm cloud moves somewhere, the middle and lower part of the cloud is a strong negative charge center, and the underlying surface opposite the cloud base becomes a positive charge center, and lightning will form between the cloud base and the ground.

The most common lightning bolts are line lightning, which are very bright lines of white, pink, or light blue, much like a river with many branches on the map, or like a large tree hanging in the sky. The "temper" of linear lightning has long been understood by scientists, and the whole process of linear lightning can be completely recorded with a continuous high-speed camera, and simulation experiments can be successfully carried out in the laboratory.

In thunderstorm clouds, air currents generate static electricity due to the friction and decomposition of water molecules. There are two types of electricity. One is the positive charge with the positively charged particles, and the other is the negative charge with the negatively charged particles.

Positive and negative charges attract each other, like magnets. The positive charge is at the upper end of the cloud, and the negative charge attracts the positive charge on the ground at the lower end of the cloud. The air between the clouds and the ground is both an insulator that prevents the current of the charge at the poles from passing through.

When the charge in the thundercloud and the charge on the ground become strong enough, the two parts of the charge will break through the air barrier and come into contact to form a strong current, and the positive charge and the negative charge will come into contact. When these opposite-sex charges meet, a neutralizing effect (discharge) occursThe intense neutralization of the charge emits a large amount of light and heat, and these emitted light forms [lightning].

Hello, flash hidden resistance is caused by the uneven distribution of charges in the atmosphere. When the water vapor inside the cloud cools and condenses to form a cloud, the inside of the cloud will produce a separation of positive and negative charges. The bottom of the cloud will be cracked with a negative charge and an empty charge, while the top of the cloud will be positively charged.

When the charges are separated to a certain extent, the phenomenon of charge discharge occurs, forming lightning. The energy released by lightning is very huge, reaching a high voltage of millions of volts, and can even heat the air to tens of thousands of degrees instantaneously, resulting in the brightness and sound of lightning.

Since the same charge repels each other, the positive and negative charges are concentrated at each end of the cloud. When the electricity carried by the cumulus clouds reaches a certain level, it will pass through the air and discharge, neutralizing the two charges and generating sparks, which is the phenomenon of lightning.

Thunder and lightning is a phenomenon of static electricity or discharge. Thunder and lightning are the phenomenon of electrical discharge in thunderstorm clouds. The formation of thunderstorm clouds generally has two conditions, sufficient water vapor and violent pure convection movement in winter, because the air is cold and dry, coupled with weak solar radiation, it is not easy to form convection in the air, so there are few thunderstorms, but sometimes the temperature in winter is high and the warm and humid air is stronger.

When there is occasionally strong cold air in the north to the south, the warm and humid air is forced to rise, and the convection intensifies, thunderstorm clouds are formed, thunder and lightning are generated, and rain and snow weather occur, the convection is particularly strong, and the rubber line can form hail, which will produce the so-called "winter thunder" weather phenomenon.

The length of a lightning bolt may be only a few hundred meters (the shortest is 100 meters), but it can be several kilometers long. The temperature of lightning varies from 17,000 degrees Celsius to 28,000 degrees Celsius, which is equal to 3.5 times the surface temperature of the sun. The extreme heat of the lightning caused the air to expand violently along its path.

The air moves quickly, so waves are formed and sound is made.

Lightning frequency

As you read this, there are about 1,800 lightning strikes going on around the world. They emit about 600 lightning bolts per second, 100 of which hit the Earth.

Lightning can turn some of the nitrogen in the air into nitrogen compounds, which can be washed down to the ground by rain. Every hectare of land on earth receives a few kilograms of this free fertilizer from high above in a year.

Kampala, the capital of Uganda, and Java, Indonesia, are the most vulnerable to lightning. According to statistics, there are 300 days of lightning on the island of Java in one year. The most violent lightning in history was the 1975 attack on a hut near um Tari in rural Zimbabwe, killing 21 people.

The above content reference: Encyclopedia - Lightning.

Because lightning is a natural phenomenon that usually occurs during thunderstorms. Lightning occurs when the charges inside the clouds are unevenly distributed, resulting in a difference in the intensity of the electric field inside the clouds. More specifically, there are regions of positive and negative charge within the clouds, and the strength of the electric field between these two regions will continue to increase with the movement of water vapor, water droplets, ice crystals, and other materials inside the clouds.

When the electric field strength reaches a high enough level, it will cause the air molecules to be ionized, resulting in the formation of plasma lead macrorollers, forming a lightning discharge. This discharge releases a lot of energy, which produces a strong and intense light and sound, so that we can see and hear lightning.

The cause of lightning is the strong electrical discharge between clouds, between clouds and the ground, or between parts of the cloud, generally in cumulonimbus clouds.

The process of formation of lightning:

1. Storm clouds or cumulonimbus clouds produce electric charges, with yin electricity at the bottom and yang electricity at the top; The ground generates a positive charge that moves with the clouds;

2. Positive and negative charges attract each other. The positive charge moves towards the top of trees, hills, tall buildings, and even the human body, where it meets the negatively charged clouds; Negatively charged branch-like antennae extend downward, approaching the ground;

3. Positive and negative charges overcome air barriers and connect with each other;

4. A huge electric current swells from the ground to the clouds along the conduction airway, producing a bright and dazzling flash, that is, lightning.

Physical properties of lightning:

1. The shortest length is about 100 meters, and the longest can reach several kilometers;

2. The temperature is about 17,000 degrees Celsius to 28,000 degrees Celsius;

3. The high heat of lightning causes the air along the way to expand violently, and the air moves quickly, forming waves and making sounds.