Jelani and Mikah are watching an approaching storm from their living room window. All of a sudden, they see a bright flash of lightning that is soon followed by a clap of thunder. What causes lightning? Describe each step involved in the forming of lightning, and give an example of a similar process from everyday life.
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
Lightning is an electrical discharge caused by imbalances between storm clouds and the ground, or within the clouds themselves. Most lightning occurs within the clouds. ... This heat causes surrounding air to rapidly expand and vibrate, which creates the pealing thunder we hear a short time after seeing a lightning flash.
Lightning is an electric current. To make this electric current, first you need a cloud.
When the ground is hot, it heats the air above it. This warm air rises. As the air rises, water vapour cools and forms a cloud. When air continues to rise, the cloud gets bigger and bigger. In the tops of the clouds, temperature is below freezing and the water vapour turns into ice.
Now, the cloud becomes a thundercloud. Lots of small bits of ice bump into each other as they move around. All these collisions cause a build up of electrical charge.
Eventually, the whole cloud fills up with electrical charges. Lighter, positively charged particles form at the top of the cloud. Heavier, negatively charged particles sink to the bottom of the cloud.
When the positive and negative charges grow large enough, a giant spark - lightning - occurs between the two charges within the cloud. This is like a static electricity sparks you see, but much bigger.
Most lightning happens inside a cloud, but sometimes it happens between the cloud and the ground.
A build up of positive charge builds up on the ground beneath the cloud, attracted to the negative charge in the bottom of the cloud. The ground's positive charge concentrates around anything that sticks up - trees, lightning conductors, even people! The positive charge from the ground connects with the negative charge from the clouds and a spark of lightning strikes.
When positive and negative charges grow large enough, a giant spark, lightning, is formed between the two charges within the cloud. This is like when you rub a balloon on your head you get static electricity that you see, just bigger! The positive charge form the ground connects with the negative charge from the clouds, and a spark of lightning can hit a tree.