There are some places that are hit by lighting with high regularity where it might make sense. Lightning rods on tall buildings. Somewhere near here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatumbo_lightning
If that new theory turns out to be somewhat right, there'll be something humbling about ancient greeks stories of Zeus sending Hephaestus bolts from ~'heaven/the cosmos' being closer to it than our modern explanations all along
I found this article interesting but lacking. Lightning also sometimes travels from the ground up to the clouds. Storm clouds produce red sprites (there are some theories about these) and blue jets, that shoot upwards towards space. Then there's ball lightning. None of these phenomena were discussed in the article.
I don't think scientists fully understand lightning at all. (At least, I don't!)
There’s a video of an EF5 tornado from the last 24-48 hours that shows continuous lightning in the background.
There hasn’t been an increase in background cosmic rays, so likely the mechanism for lightning generation is likely a continuum in different scenarios. Cosmic rays are one, but not all.
Despite the title, the video shows a really strong mesocyclone as there is a break between the cloud and the ground. The funnel might be visible, but it’s not as big as the video makes you think.
Orrrrrr, there are always tons of cosmic rays of the type that create lightning hitting earth, there just aren't the conditions necessary for those rays to trigger lightning except for when there's a big storm. I imagine the clouds are a different electrical environment than a regular sky and maybe in those conditions a cosmic rays will trigger lightning. Like a gigantic bubble chamber made of our atmosphere.
As others have mentioned you are correct. But Earth's atmosphere has plenty of all forms of matter. A proton can interact with mostly anything and accelerate it. So you can find high energy everything in low earth orbit.
no detectable ELECTRICAL charge, but they do
contain "energy", and do attract with other particles, so I am still ABSOLUTLY totaly correct in my statement.
"the universe is an energy gradient", and one of the few absolutes
Look at the title. Imagine what you'd expect an article whose title is "What causes lightning?" to say.
Now, here's how the article closes:
"These features suggest that even as explanations get more comprehensive, the case of how lightning really works will keep getting reopened. “It just gets more and more bizarre the more we look,” Dwyer said. “Clearly our very simple pictures here are really incomplete.”
So TLDR, we don't know, we know we don't know, and in fact we anticipate not knowing for quite some time. The article explicitly admits it doesn't know the answer to the question it posed in the title - no, the answer doesn't keep getting more interesting, because we don't have the answer yet.
Quanta articles are invariably horribly written, horribly explained, and constantly do this thing where they simultaneously are pretentious and over complicate things while also belabouring simple, elementary concepts. Essentially it’s the worst of every world.
And that’s to say nothing about how they click bait everything.
We don’t even understand friction. Which is one source of static charges, which we thus don’t understand well either. And static charges that somehow accumulate in the clouds cause lightning, which… I think you get the point.
As a child I saw an acted segment about ball lightning in childrens‘ TV, following a person around the house, and had nightmares for a long time afterwards. The thing is spooky as hell.
As long as you reject the hypothesis of "ionized matter" ball lightning is completely unexplainable. If you accept that ionized matter is hot and gives off plenty of EM radiation, it's pretty simple.
> The cosmic ray hypothesis has been dominant for a few years now.
> This magazine…
I think saying "This magazine…" as if the flaws of Quanta are well understood and agreed may need additional elaboration. If you mean that experts have known this—well, the role of Quanta is to disseminate and explain expert research to scientifically literate non-experts; it is not meant to be distributing the latest research itself.
> the role of Quanta is to disseminate and explain expert research to scientifically literate non-experts; it is not meant to be distributing the latest research itself
Quanta articles are invariably horribly written, horribly explained, and constantly do this thing whether they simultaneously are pretentious and over complicate things while also belabouring simple, elementary concepts. Essentially it’s the worst of every world.
And that’s to say nothing about how they click bait everything.
Not the guy you’re responding to but Quanta articles are invariably horribly written, horribly explained, and constantly do this thing whether they simultaneously are pretentious and over complicate things while also belabouring simple, elementary concepts. Essentially it’s the worst of every world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BJIiX9_c_M
Any ideas why the lightning strike appears mostly green (and momentarily purple and orange)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvesting_lightning_energy
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_09.html
I don't think scientists fully understand lightning at all. (At least, I don't!)
There hasn’t been an increase in background cosmic rays, so likely the mechanism for lightning generation is likely a continuum in different scenarios. Cosmic rays are one, but not all.
Despite the title, the video shows a really strong mesocyclone as there is a break between the cloud and the ground. The funnel might be visible, but it’s not as big as the video makes you think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Enderlin_tornado#Tornado_...
Look at the title. Imagine what you'd expect an article whose title is "What causes lightning?" to say.
Now, here's how the article closes:
"These features suggest that even as explanations get more comprehensive, the case of how lightning really works will keep getting reopened. “It just gets more and more bizarre the more we look,” Dwyer said. “Clearly our very simple pictures here are really incomplete.”
So TLDR, we don't know, we know we don't know, and in fact we anticipate not knowing for quite some time. The article explicitly admits it doesn't know the answer to the question it posed in the title - no, the answer doesn't keep getting more interesting, because we don't have the answer yet.
That's clickbait.
Its purpose: https://www.quantamagazine.org/about/
And that’s to say nothing about how they click bait everything.
We have so much scientific work to do.
The cosmic ray hypothesis has been dominant for a few years now.
This magazine…
> The cosmic ray hypothesis has been dominant for a few years now.
> This magazine…
I think saying "This magazine…" as if the flaws of Quanta are well understood and agreed may need additional elaboration. If you mean that experts have known this—well, the role of Quanta is to disseminate and explain expert research to scientifically literate non-experts; it is not meant to be distributing the latest research itself.
Quanta articles are invariably horribly written, horribly explained, and constantly do this thing whether they simultaneously are pretentious and over complicate things while also belabouring simple, elementary concepts. Essentially it’s the worst of every world.
And that’s to say nothing about how they click bait everything.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/biology-confronts-data-comple...
The presence of an em-dash is not a smoking gun.