Is a lightning streak always positive? If yes, then:
Why is lightning streak always positively charged?
Please give only valid scientific reasons.
If no, can you please explain (of possible) why is it shown positive in the textbook? Please clear my misunderstanding if the answer is no.
Only EXPERTS or SERIOUS USERS answer. (Serious user: Bent on giving best quality answers)
Thank you for your answers in advance.
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Answered by
6
You asked it dude. Sorry for going into so many details. I'll try my best to make it simple.
So a lighting strike is negatively charged. No doubts in that. Now you can think of clouds as capacitors. Extremely large capacitors. In a capacitor we store charges. And by some rubbing in between the different clouds, what you get is electrons being exchanged from one cloud to another, leading one being positive, another being negative. Now here's the real deal. I told you that these clouds could be thought of as capacitors, and capacitors radiate electric field lines. But air is an insulator. So for a long time, nothing happens, as it should. But clouds are not perfect capacitors.
THEY HAVE UNEVEN SURFACE AREA.
Because of this a lot of electrons accumulate more in the pointy edges of the clouds.
Now there's gotta be a limit for the air molecules to remain being insulator, or in other words, their bonds strongers than the electric field of our so so capacitor. Once this limit is crossed, the air molecules gets ionised, or their bonds get broken, making them polar molecules.
And thus the electrons travel through them. Giving Us Lightning.
Hope this helps. Peace.
P.S. In your book, the ground is positive, not lightning.
So a lighting strike is negatively charged. No doubts in that. Now you can think of clouds as capacitors. Extremely large capacitors. In a capacitor we store charges. And by some rubbing in between the different clouds, what you get is electrons being exchanged from one cloud to another, leading one being positive, another being negative. Now here's the real deal. I told you that these clouds could be thought of as capacitors, and capacitors radiate electric field lines. But air is an insulator. So for a long time, nothing happens, as it should. But clouds are not perfect capacitors.
THEY HAVE UNEVEN SURFACE AREA.
Because of this a lot of electrons accumulate more in the pointy edges of the clouds.
Now there's gotta be a limit for the air molecules to remain being insulator, or in other words, their bonds strongers than the electric field of our so so capacitor. Once this limit is crossed, the air molecules gets ionised, or their bonds get broken, making them polar molecules.
And thus the electrons travel through them. Giving Us Lightning.
Hope this helps. Peace.
P.S. In your book, the ground is positive, not lightning.
AdiN05517:
Awesome answer! Great! Thank you
for clearing both my doubt and misunderstanding ☺☺
It's good that you understood that long explanation bro
:D
i expected a more scientific and difficult explanation... i don't have any problem understanding explanations...
difficult: more deeply
:-D
Awesome:)
Answered by
4
Answer:
Less than 5 to 10 percent of lightning strikes are positive. The rest are negative. More lightning strike victims are stuck by positive lightning than negative lightning.
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