Do you remember the first time in a rainy night you noticed a spark of light in the sky followed by an intense sound? This sparkle of light you have noticed is called lightning while the sound you heard after is called thunder. Lightning is an electric current discharge that is formed due to the collision occurring between small bits of frozen raindrops and air molecules inside a cloud. All of these collisions result in the formation of a positive electric charge on the top of the cloud and a negative charge on the bottom. The negative charge at the bottom attracts positive charge to be accumulated on top of mountains and tress. As the cloud is filled with charges, the positive and negative charges seek to reach each other in order to neutralize. At this point, a giant spark is constituted that we define as “Lightning”. The spark of lightning can reach a temperature of 20.000 Celsius degrees which rapidly heats the air around causing a shock wave. Here comes the intense sound that follows lightning that is known as thunder.
The fact that the sound of thunder is heard after the lightning is attributed to huge difference between the speed of light and sound. The speed of light is 3.00×108 m/s while the speed of sound is only 340 m/s.
Fun Fact: A lightning strike is almost 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun!
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What Causes Lightning and Thunder?
Written BY: MAHMOUD ELSHAZLY