My understanding of lightning is that it is to solve an imbalance of electrons between earth & ground. If this is the case, why do some strikes hit airborne objects and such that can’t be “grounded”?
In: Physics
diferences in electron concentrations are not only between ground and air but between different air parts as well and i guss what goes arround comes arround so no touching ground some times
The ground isn’t some magical thing. Charges that are imbalanced with flow to whatever so long as there are less charges there and they can spread out. They prefer to flow to an oppositely charged region, but neutral will do to as they can both become slightly negative (or positive) and spread out the charge more. Earth is quite a good neutral point, as it’s very big and takes a lot of charge to make it charged. But if we’re talking an airplane, the metal body takes this role instead.
Lightning is the build up of charges in clouds. That’s where the charges were exchanged, not with the ground. Most lightning is actually between clouds, or within a large one. Only occasionally does it discharge to the neutral earth. And this makes sense, the earth is neutral here. The clouds are positively or negatively charged, that’s where the “friction” causing the static build up is happening, not on the ground. Only if a cloud has no oppositely charged cloud near by will it build up enough to strike the neutral ground, that’s further away and not oppositely charged, it’s a rare lesser alternative. You only think otherwise because it’s the one you see, you don’t see it within or between clouds, and if you do you’re falsely assuming it the ground far away.
Ground is so fundamental to the electrical power system, only because we make it so. One end of a generator or transformer literally has its wire attached to some copper rods driven into the ground. We chose to make the ground a wire in our electrical system. I think this is where the confusion about ground comes from. This is a human choice, not some fundamental behaviour that electricity always wants to go into the ground. Hook up one end of a battery to the ground and literally nothing happens, electricity does not inherently flow to ground.
The charge is constantly looking to be discharged. As soon as it finds a place to go, it goes. It doesn’t care if that place also has nowhere else to go.
Lightning is just an effect that happens when hot and cold air particles pass through eachother, lighting itself just strikes the closest object
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