Is electricity weightless?

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The understanding is that electricity simply *passes* through a conductor pushing electrons but isn’t mass required to be able to “push”?? And while at it I wonder… Is there evidence of electricity being present in other planets? or in open space? Please ELI5

In: Physics

10 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Good answers to the main question already, so I’ll answer the side questions.

Mass is not required to push, only a force is. One example of the difference is light, which is massless but does push on things it hits (very, very weakly).

Electric current is just moving, charged particles, and there are lots of sources of these in space and other planets. The largest source is the sun itself, as charged particles constantly stream off it in what’s called solar wind. This interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field to create the auroras, and similar auroras have been detected on other planets with magnetic fields. Another source is weather. Other planets have lightning, which is electricity. So yes, lots of naturally occurring electric currents in space and on other planets.

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