What causes lightning? The answer keeps getting more interesting (quantamagazine.org)

74 points by Tomte 3 days ago

11 comments:

by nomilk 4 hours ago

That 7 second video of a small rocket shot into a cloud to induce a lightning strike (about half way down the article) is incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BJIiX9_c_M

Any ideas why the lightning strike appears mostly green (and momentarily purple and orange)?

by postalcoder 9 minutes ago

Copper emits a green/blue light in the flame test https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwsexjcROH4

by deepandmeaning 4 hours ago

I'm imagining it's something related to the copper wire.

by teh_infallible 3 hours ago

I always wanted to replicate this with a helium balloon and a long, wet string coated with copper filings.

by batch12 an hour ago

You'd probably need a very large balloon to overcome the weight of the string

by CamelCaseCondo an hour ago

Maybe just salt water and skip the filings?

by joshikarthikey 13 minutes ago

Soooo you are telling me that we still haven't fully understood something as fundamental as lightning and it's still an active area of research...

by fguerraz 2 hours ago

So, nothing new?

The cosmic ray hypothesis has been dominant for a few years now.

This magazine…

by freehorse 2 hours ago

Tl;dr lightings may be caused by electrons/positrons from outer space hitting a cloud and initiating an "avalanche" of electrons.

by pfdietz an hour ago

Cosmic rays are mostly protons, not electrons or positrons. You're mixing up to separate theories in the article.

by metalman 3 hours ago

just in case you missed it, all matter carrys a charge, and all space(and matter) has energy radiating through it, making the universe an energy gradient.

sometimes you can see it happening.

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