Lightning, when you get right down to it, is essentially nothing but static electricity on a grand scale. Rising water vapor condenses into droplets or tiny ice crystals, which acquire a static electric charge as they pass through the air. This mechanism is responsible for all the forms of lightning found in thunderstorms–cloud to cloud [...]
Normally, a lightning bolt (as we talked about before) hits the ground after a long, complex chain of events that concludes with a streamer from the ground reaching up and making contact with a descending ionization channel.
Throughout history, that's the way lightning has worked. People have not always understood the mechanism, of course; lightning's often [...]
Today we're not going to talk about lightning of the natural variety, and instead talk about lightning of the man-made variety. Specifically, we're going to talk about the Z-Machine, an enormous X-ray generator at Sandia National Laboratory.
How enormous? This enormous:
(You can click on the picture for a bigger version. Believe me, it's worth it.)
What you [...]
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A lightning strike indirectly killed a man who had taken cover inside a tent with three other people, reported KMGH-TV in Denver.
This story illustrates one of the hidden dangers of high-voltage electricity in general and lightning in particular: splash current. A lightning bolt can kill you without even touching you.
When a [...]
In our last post, we talked about the way lightning forms in stages, where a high electrical field will cause the formation of an ionization channel that grows in stages from a cloud toward the ground.
This same process occurs in solid materials under the influence of a large, powerful electrical field. Any time you have [...]
So, if you're over the age of six or so, you probably know that lightning tends to strike the highest point around. This is why staying under a tree during a thunderstorm is a bad idea; lightning will tend to prefer tall objects, and if you're under the tree when it gets hit, you're likely [...]