What causes lightning? The answer keeps getting more interesting

 (quantamagazine.org)

101 points | by Tomte 2 days ago

7 comments

  • raulparada 2 minutes ago
    If that new theory turns out to be somewhat right, there'll be something humbling about ancient greeks stories of Zeus sending Hephaestus bolts from ~'heaven/the cosmos' being closer to it than our modern explanations all along
  • nomilk 6 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)?

    [-]
  • cinderelacinder 6 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • freehorse 4 hours ago
    Tl;dr lightings may be caused by electrons/positrons from outer space hitting a cloud and initiating an "avalanche" of electrons.
    [-]
    • xattt 45 minutes ago
      There’s a video of an EF5 tornado from the last 24-48 hours that shows continuous lightning in the background.

      There hasn’t been an increase in background cosmic rays, so likely the mechanism for lightning generation is likely a continuum in different scenarios. Cosmic rays are one, but not all.

    • pfdietz 3 hours ago
      Cosmic rays are mostly protons, not electrons or positrons. You're mixing up to separate theories in the article.
      [-]
      • nirse 1 hour ago
        Well, the primary particles that hit the atmosphere are mostly protons. They cause avalanche of secondaires that are varied but mostly muons,
    • nephihaha 2 hours ago
      Much of the time they occur when two weather fronts of different temperatures collide with each other.
  • metalman 5 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.

  • fguerraz 4 hours ago
    So, nothing new?

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

    This magazine…

    [-]
    • JadeNB 2 hours ago
      > So, nothing new?

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

      > This magazine…

      I think saying "This magazine…" as if the flaws of Quanta are well understood and agreed may need additional elaboration. If you mean that experts have known this—well, the role of Quanta is to disseminate and explain expert research to scientifically literate non-experts; it is not meant to be distributing the latest research itself.

      [-]
  • joshikarthikey 2 hours 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...
    [-]
    • dnnddidiej 1 hour ago
      It is cool that something so seemingly ordinary is extraordinary.
    • echelon 1 hour ago
      We don't even have an accurate mathematical description of how a single water molecule works.

      We have so much scientific work to do.

    • nephihaha 2 hours ago
      Never mind this kind of lightning, it gets really interesting when we start to look at ball lightning, which is very real but rarely sighted.
      [-]
      • Tomte 2 hours ago
        As a child I saw an acted segment about ball lightning in childrens‘ TV, following a person around the house, and had nightmares for a long time afterwards. The thing is spooky as hell.
    • JadeNB 2 hours ago
      Not to be flip, but, depending on what "fully" means, we haven't fully understood much of anything about the real world.