how is electricty created in lightning????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
439061
Lightning is electricity. When the clouds build up too much electrons and the voltage between the cloud and the ground is great enough to cause air to break down and conduct, you get lighting. Its like a spark.
157859
The first process in the generation of lightning is the forcible separation of positive and negative charge carriers within a cloud or air. The mechanism by which this happens is still the subject of research, but one widely accepted theory is the polarisation mechanism. This mechanism has two components: the first is that falling droplets of ice and rain become electrically polarised as they fall through the atmosphere's natural electric field, and the second is that colliding ice particles become charged by electrostatic induction. Once charged, by whatever mechanism, work is performed as the opposite charges are driven apart and energy is stored in the electric fields between them. The positively charged crystals tend to rise to the top, causing the cloud top to build up a positive charge, and the negatively charged crystals and hailstones drop to the middle and bottom layers of the cloud, building up a negative charge. Cloud-to-cloud lightning can appear at this point. Cloud-to-ground lightning is less common. Cumulonimbus clouds that do not produce enough ice crystals usually fail to produce enough charge separation to cause lightning.\n\nWhen sufficient negatives and positives gather in this way, and when the electric field becomes sufficiently strong, an electrical discharge occurs within the clouds or between the clouds and the ground, producing the bolt. It has been suggested by experimental evidence that these discharges are triggered by cosmic ray strikes which ionise atoms, releasing electrons that are accelerated by the electric fields, ionising other air molecules and making the air conductive by a runaway breakdown, then starting a lightning strike. During the strike, successive portions of air become conductive as the electrons and positive ions of air molecules are pulled away from each other and forced to flow in opposite directions (stepped channels called step leaders). The conductive filament grows in length. At the same time, electrical energy stored in the electric field flows radially inward into the conductive filament.\n\nWhen a charged step leader is near the ground, opposite charges appear on the ground and enhance the electric field. The electric field is higher on trees and tall buildings. If the electric field is strong enough, a discharge can initiate from the ground. This discharge starts as positive streamer and, if it develops as a positive leader, can eventually connect to the descending discharge from the cloud.\n\nLightning can also occur within the ash clouds from volcanic eruptions[1],[2], or can be caused by violent forest fires which generate sufficient dust to create a static charge.\n\nA bolt of lightning usually begins when an invisible negatively charged stepped leader stroke is sent out from the cloud. As it does so, a positively charged streamer is usually sent out from the positively charged ground or cloud. When the two leaders meet, the electric current greatly increases. The region of high current propagates back up the positive stepped leader into the cloud. This "return stroke" is the most luminous part of the strike, and is the part that is really visible. Most lightning strikes usually last about a quarter of a second. Sometimes several strokes will travel up and down the same leader strike, causing a flickering effect. This discharge rapidly superheats the leader channel, causing the air to expand rapidly and produce a shock wave heard as thunder.\n\nIt is possible for streamers to be sent out from several different objects simultaneously, with only one connecting with the leader and forming the discharge path. Photographs have been taken on which non-connected streamers are visible such as that shown on the right.\n\nThis type of lightning is known as negative lightning because of the discharge of negative charge from the cloud, and accounts for over 95% of all lightning.\n\nAn average bolt of negative lightning carries a current of 30 kiloamperes, transfe
282569
ah ha my kinda question. lightning comes down only to a point above the strike point then a contacting point comes up from the strike point and connects with the down charge completing the circut. then the charge goes up and down several times. thats what causes the bright flash. here are some pages that will help.
681841
Same principle as neon lighting.  With a neon light you have a gas with current passing through it causing it to emit off a light.  In this case it sounds like a concentration of whatever the specific gas happened to be in the air at the lightning strike, and what you saw was the gas emitting it's light.  Anyone happen to know what gas gives off green light in neon lights?
266861
Hurricanes typically don't produce much lightning, but sometimes they can.\n\nHere is a website with some investigation about this.\n\n http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd16jun99_1.htm
805038
If you study the details of lightening, u will find that there are some strikes that are between the clouds. Some hit the earth. There is some detailed mechnisms described in books. There u will find terms like pilot leader, streamers, etc.\n\nWhen the lightning occurs, the air gets ionised. So, even if u capture a  Lightening in your tower, the air will become an ionised conductor, so the charge will go to thwe ground. \n\nThe strike from ground occurs as well as the strike from the cloud. \n\nAbove all it is not feasible.\n\nThank you.
1101052
Electricity is simply electrons in motion.  Iron, in its pure state, has free electrons available. (note that all metals, either pure or as an alloy, will have some free electrons available; hence metals are typically good conductors.)  \nA more complete picture of the process would look like this:  These free electrons are on the outside surface of the wire.  Now envision ; as you apply current-more electrons- to the wire, these electrons move along the wire and bump into the available free electrons on the surface, thus pushing them along and allowing the current to flow.  This process causes a certain amount of friction and explains why the wire warms up
514416
The correct answer is yes it can.\n\nIn a thunder or cumulonimbus cloud the warm air rises and the cold air sinks, this movement of air causes a huge difference in the electrical distribution with the top of the cloud having a positive charge and the bottom having a negative charge.  A positive charge also builds up on the earths surface.\n\nEventually these charges built to such an extent that there is an electrical discharge from the negative charge at the base of the cloud towards the positive charge at the top of the cloud and also down to the positive charge on the ground.\n\nWhat actually happens is that the first discharge travels towards earth in short but very rapid bursts of about 100 meter lengths - when you see jagged strokes of lightening this is because each burst can change direction.  As it gets closer to earth the strength of the electrical field intensifies until contact is made with the earth.\n\nThis initial discharge is only a weak stroke of lightening and is called the Leader Stroke.  As soon as contact is made there is a much more powerful stroke of lightening which travels from the earth back to the cloud and this is the lightening we see, this is called the Return Stroke.
216544
Ordinarily, wood is not a conductor of electricity...\n\nBut not for lightning...It strikes the tallest object in an area. If you are under a tree or within its vicinity, if lightning strikes the tree, then it may likely hit you, too, due to its very high voltage (it may reach several thousand or even million volts)...\n\nIf lightning hits you, you will be lucky if you survive...
69358
Power induction occurs when some material that can conduct electrical current is moved through a magnetic field.\n\nThe newest type of flashlight (sometimes called "shake flashlights") uses this principle. When a shake flashlight is shaken, a magnet slides back and forth through a copper wire coil. The electricity produced as a result is then stored in a capacitor (a capacitor is an electronics component that will store electrical energy) instead of a battery.\n\nPower induction can also occur between individual lines of a high-voltage power line system.
619415
From a distance, lightning will come before the thunder.  But at the point of the bolt, they occur at the same time.\n\nFrom the source below:\n"Actually, they do occur at the same time. The time difference that you sense is due to the way sound and light travel. Light travels extremely fast (300,000,000 m/s). In fact, it is faster than anything else. Sound travels at a measly 343 m/s through air. Therefore we can see light in an instant, but it takes a while to hear thunder."
163321
i beleve it all has something to do with the flow of electrons. Magnitism can create electricity and electricity can create magnitism.
1148847
No.\n\nThe electric charge that causes lightning on the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn is built up in the atmosphere from the solar radiation that hits the atmosphere.\n\nThough the solar particles have an electric charge, without a dense atmosphere, acting as a capacitor to allow the building up of large charges, you don't get lightning bolts. A lightening bolt requires a million volts per meter. \n\nIndividual solar particles interact with other particles but the discharge is of the magnitude of a few electrons worth of charge.  The elves and aurora are caused by solar particles striking the upper atmosphere. But the eleves and aurora are not lightning bolts.   \n\nWithout a dense enough atmosphere there can be no lightning. \n\nThe moon does have a tenuous atmosphere but it is not dense enough to act as a capacitor. \n\nTycho crater was formed from more than one meteorite impact. There was the main impact and then smaller impacts on the big scar.\n\nThe youngest crater is Giordano Bruno and you can see that it has not been overlaid with other impacts.
218137
I have nver heard of an electric current being effected by light, so my first inclination is to say no.\n\nHowever, if you think of light as an electromagnetic wave, a set of orthagonal electric and magnetic fields, it may be possible.\nAn electric current is simply the flow of charged particles (usually electrons).\nWe know that an electric field will effect an electric current (opposite charges attract, like charges repel).  We also know that a magnetic field will effect a current (moving electric current generated magnetic field and exerts a force on an electricly charged particles).\nSo it may be possible for the moving electric and magnetic fields to interfere with the electric current, but I am not entirely sure.
87627
lighting bolts are very much jagged. Actually its composed of a number of straight lines. \n\nLighting is a spark between two clouds/ a cloud and the gound.This has to go through air (insulator). The conductivities of air are dissimilar at differnet places. So, the lightning goes through different layers of air through different paths. The discharge will take place between two points which has highest charge density. These points in air are not present in a staight line. Thus following these points lightning becomes jagged.
607179
a belt is driven across a surface rubbing the two together to make 'static', which is basically just free electrons. they collect in the big metallic ball, and when the potential is high enough between the ball and another conductor (or a conductor is brough close enough), the electrons 'jump the gap' to get to ground, and you see the big spark!\n\nWant to build one? Here's how:
176989
electric charges go from ground to sky. The lightning is the effect (also the thunder) of such traveling charges.