What are some interesting lightning facts?
Lightning can heat the air it passes through to temperatures of about 30,000 °C (54,000 °F). That is regarded as 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun. The discharge process, or return stroke, of the lightning is the most luminous part where the electric current moves through the channel. One observation found that the rate at which the return stroke current traveled was around 100,000 km/s (or one-third the speed of light). Global monitoring indicates that lightning on Earth occurs at an average frequency of approximately 44 (± 5) times per second.
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Every fact about lightning is an interesting fact! Lightning is cool as hell. I wish I had some facts to add but I'll be following the comment section here
Akschually lightning is hot as hell and I'll see myself out.
I have a lightning fact! I am an upper atmosphere physicist and lightning plays a fundamental role in the global electric circuit. Lightning sends charge upward into the ionosphere where the ionosphere distributes the charge horizontally across the globe (Carnegie curve). The return current then trickles down through fair weather regions on Earth, completing the electric circuit!
I have always appreciated how connected all the layers of the atmosphere are. The ionosphere begins between ~60-90km above the surface, yet lightning still affects it!
Roy Sullivan the human lightning rod struck seven time. His wife also got hit once. Talk about a relationship where you need separate bedrooms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Sullivan
Walter Summerford (sometimes referred to as Major Summerford) was an Alabama sportsman who was struck by lightning three times during his lifetime. According to various accounts, four years after his death, lightning struck and destroyed his gravestone in a cemetery in Columbia, Alabama.
https://funfactz.com/places/walter-summerford-lightning
Ball Lightning
People have been reporting it for at least hundreds of years, but it has only recently been accepted by the science community. Still don't know what causes it.
Microwave a lit candle, cause some on your own. Is fun. Be careful, you might burn your house down.
I might look up vids but I ain't doing that in my microwave.
Put a glass bowl over it to contain.
Actually, don't, but you could. But don't.
do itIt’s pretty sick that some of the most extreme high energy phenomena in the universe take place right here on earth.
Lightning could be triggered by particles coming from stars exploding somewhere in our universe: https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-causes-lightning-the-answer-keeps-getting-more-interesting-20260506/