air is a bad conductor of electricity. but how the lighting reaches the earth
Answers
No, no, no; lighting occurs because air is a poor conductor of electricity.
The molecules of oxygen and nitrogen that make up most of the air around us are very good at holding on to their electrons. However, any poor conductor can be turned into a good conductor by applying a sufficiently strong electrostatic field to it. That makes the molecules lose their grip on their electrons, which then fly away in the direction the applied field points.
Lightning usually occurs due to what are called thunderstorms. That’s basically a rising column of warm, moist air that cools as it rises, freezing some of the moisture into ice crystals. Some of the crystals melt a little and merge with others forming graupel, or “soft hail” which being heavier and denser than single fluffy ice crystals then proceeds to fall. The surfaces of ice and graupel have different ability to hold on to their electrons- the electrons on the ice tend to come off and stick to the graupel. The ice crystals keep rising, carrying the positive charge with them while the graupel either is suspended in the updraft or falls to the ground (and often melts on the way down into rain) and deposits its negative charge there.
It takes about 3 to 5 million volts (depending on pressure, temperature, and humidity) per meter of applied field to rip electrons loose from air molecules. It takes a while for individual ice crystal/graupel collisions to separate enough charge to generate that much voltage over the five miles or so between the ground and where the ice crystals hover in thunderclouds, but when it does, BLAM!- air turns from a poor conductor to an excellent conductor, if only briefly.
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