The part of lightning that humans can see is actually coming from the ground up.
With all of the talk about the earthquake that struck Athens on Tuesday, I thought that I would write about one of my favorite natural phenomena, lightning. Obviously most people know what lightning is, the huge bolt of electricity shooting through the sky, but most people think that it’s solely coming from the clouds, when that is not the case. Sorry for all the fans of the recently premiered movie Thor; he isn’t the cause of this either.
I’ve always heard that lightning really came from the ground up, and I didn’t know how well I trusted my sources that told me this information. The National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) puts the information into a way without using terms that most people haven’t heard of before.
When the question, “Does lightning strike from the sky down, or the ground up?” NSSL’s response was “the answer is both.” Lightning comes from the sky, but it comes down in a negatively charged form, and we aren’t able to see this flash of light that this spark emits. The spark that we are seeing is when the positively charged Earth connects with this stream, because the ground is mostly positive charged.
I thought that this was really cool, because it is a little fact that I wasn’t so sure of, but I had always heard about it, and it turns out that it makes a lot of sense as to the reasoning behind it. The explanation is easy, and the fact that everything has a charge is something that most people learned in high school science, so it’s something easy to grasp.
While I was on the NSSL site, I decided to settle another argument that I had with a friend, and it turns out I was right. Most people also don’t know that thunder cannot happen unless you have lightning; thunder is a direct result of it.
I think it’s always important to know how things on Earth work, you may never need the information, but it could be good for something someday. Now if you are every arguing with a friend about this topic, you have evidence and the scientific proof behind why lightning really does go from the ground up.
Adam Wondrely is a junior studying creative writing and journalism. Know any other uncommon facts about the Earth’s natural phenomena? Email him at aw922910@ohiou.edu.
This article appeared in print under the headline "Keeps you wondering: Lightning bursts in reverse, thunder its resounding sound"
