ELi5: How does lightning produce light, and how does that light differ from sunlight?
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Energy can generate light (like a flame!)
The sun is made of flames
Lightning is just a big static charge
Even rubbing socks on carpet and poking a doorknob will generate a “spark”
This is because you’ve created energy, and the output basically becomes “light”
Lightning produces light due to a process called incandescence. Essentially, when lightning comes down it creates a channel of conductive plasma within the air. The heat flow within this channel heats up the air rapidly to about 50,000 degrees fahrenheit. These air temperatures cause a process called incandescence to the point where the molecules in the air emit light.
Sunlight works differently as in it’s a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the sun, in particular infrared, ultraviolet, and visible light.
TLDR; Lightning produces light through the rapid heating of air molecules, where as sunlight comes from sun radiation.
* When electricity goes through things, they heat up.
* When things get really hot, they glow.
Lightning is a lot of electricity going through the air. The air in the electricity’s path gets so hot it glows brightly – that’s lightning. It’s the same effect as the filament of a lightbulb, where electricity goes through a metal wire and makes it hot enough to brightly glow.
Sunlight has some similarity, except in this case the sun’s matter is being heated by its own nuclear fusion rather than a flow of electricity. Also the fusion reactions in the sun directly produce photons (light) too, besides the light glow emitted by the surface being really hot.
When electrons step down from their valence shell, they emit photons.
When the extreme heat of a lightning strike heats the air around it, countless electrons jump up a valence state. As the heat subsides, the electrons drop a valence state and emit light. This happens so fast that what you see is a bolt.
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