is thunder the sound of lightning moving through the air, or of lightning hitting the ground?
In: 15
It’s the sound of the shockwave caused by the air as it is rapidly heated from the lightning. The sudden increase in temperature creates a sudden increase in pressure, causing the air to expand and create said shockwave.
It’s the same as when your hand has a static charge and you get a tiny shock touching a doorknob. Sometimes you hear a little pop, thunder is the same action, just much, much bigger of course
Technically it’s the sound of air smacking into itself. Lightning is so powerful that it forces air to separate as it passes. Once the lightning’s gone the air quickly rushes in to refill the void. What you hear with thunder is the sound of the air molecules impacting other air molecules by the trillions.
Thunder is the sound of air hitting itself. Lightning ionizes air, making it conduct better, and then surges a huge electric current through the ionized air. This current heats the gas to a high temperature. The temperature causes the air to expand. As it expands, it cools because the air around it is cool. Once it cools down, there is cylinder of very low air pressure, where the lightning used to be. The air collapses into this “vacuum”, and when it smacks into the air from the other side of the cylinder it creates sound waves we hear as thunder.
Good answers, I’ll just add that lightening doesn’t “hit” the ground. the ground is the end of an electrical arc. You might get noise from whatever is on the ground being superheated (same as the air), but the sound of all that air is generally much louder than whatever is is heated on the ground before the electricity dissipates.
It is the superheating of the air. The heat created in the lightning causes the air to expand creating a shockwave which we hear and feel as thunder. https://youtu.be/NQiqXdEHL_Q
Latest Answers