Electricity
Lightning
- Each bolt can contain up to one billion volts of electricity - Electrical discharge is caused by an imbalance between positive and negative charges in the atmosphere - Colliding particles of rain, ice, or snow increase this imbalance and often negatively charge the lower reaches of storm clouds - Objects on the ground, like steeples, trees, and the Earth itself, become positively charged - A step-like series of negative charges, called a stepped leader, works its way incrementally downward from the bottom of a storm cloud toward the Earth - When the lowermost step comes within 150 feet of a positively charged object it is met by a climbing surge of positive electricity, called a streamer - The process forms a channel through which electricity is transferred as lightning
Aurora Borealis - Caused by collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere. - Result from emissions of photons in the earth’s upper atmosphere from ionized nitrogen atoms regaining an electron and oxygen and nitrogen atoms returning from an excited state to ground state. - Ionized/excited from the collision of solar wind and megnetiopheric particles being funneled down and running along the earth’s magnetic field lines. - when charged particles originating in the Sun and transported here by solar winds collide with particles located in Earth's magnetosphere - These collisions, which mostly involve electrons, but can also feature protons and other elements, generate the glow in the skies - Appearance of auroras is shaped by the Earth's magnetic lines, electrons from solar winds tend to follow the guidance of these lines, and to move towards Earth by spiraling downwards along them. - Production of electrical current. - Auroras have a very strong effect on magnets, and can generate electricity on account of the fact that electrons composing them can move perpendicular to
- Each bolt can contain up to one billion volts of electricity - Electrical discharge is caused by an imbalance between positive and negative charges in the atmosphere - Colliding particles of rain, ice, or snow increase this imbalance and often negatively charge the lower reaches of storm clouds - Objects on the ground, like steeples, trees, and the Earth itself, become positively charged - A step-like series of negative charges, called a stepped leader, works its way incrementally downward from the bottom of a storm cloud toward the Earth - When the lowermost step comes within 150 feet of a positively charged object it is met by a climbing surge of positive electricity, called a streamer - The process forms a channel through which electricity is transferred as lightning
Aurora Borealis - Caused by collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere. - Result from emissions of photons in the earth’s upper atmosphere from ionized nitrogen atoms regaining an electron and oxygen and nitrogen atoms returning from an excited state to ground state. - Ionized/excited from the collision of solar wind and megnetiopheric particles being funneled down and running along the earth’s magnetic field lines. - when charged particles originating in the Sun and transported here by solar winds collide with particles located in Earth's magnetosphere - These collisions, which mostly involve electrons, but can also feature protons and other elements, generate the glow in the skies - Appearance of auroras is shaped by the Earth's magnetic lines, electrons from solar winds tend to follow the guidance of these lines, and to move towards Earth by spiraling downwards along them. - Production of electrical current. - Auroras have a very strong effect on magnets, and can generate electricity on account of the fact that electrons composing them can move perpendicular to