From childhood to adulthood, I can't count how many thunderstorms I have experienced, but do you know that lightning actually has more than one shape and color, and how long is the longest lightning in the world? Where did they end up?
Today, the Daoist friends of the "crossing robbery" will take everyone to reveal the secret together.
Daoyou dojo D1
There are many times of robbery, what lightning has not been seen!
On the first day of the "Daoyou" raid, he saw all kinds of lightning, ordinary humans, haven't you seen it? Open your eyes today!
Lightning is a transient high-current, high-voltage discharge phenomenon that occurs in the atmosphere, and the lightning we see is actually composed of multiple lightning bolts.
The first stop: Daoyou takes everyone to "kill" first and see their old friends - linear (or branched) lightning.
This kind of lightning is very common in life, they have a dazzling light and a very fine light, the whole lightning is like a horizontal or downward hanging vertical and horizontal forks, and like a river with many tributaries on the map.
Most of them are cloud-to-ground flash (the process of ground discharge between the cloud and the ground), and some have a high current intensity, reaching an average of tens of thousands of amperes, and in a few cases up to 200,000 amperes (1 kilowatt of rice cooker uses only 4.5 amperes).
Next up is the same common flaky lightning bolt.
They appear to have a flash of light on the surface of the cloud, often when the intensity of the cloud has weakened and precipitation tends to stop, and are a weaker discharge phenomenon, mostly cloud flashes (a discharge process that occurs within or between positive and negative charges in the cloud).
The third appearance was the Ribbon Lightning.
It is generally composed of several consecutive discharges, and between the lightning bolts, the lightning path moves due to the influence of the wind, so that each individual lightning bolt is close to each other, like a ribbon (the shape is a bit beautiful). If you hit a house, it will immediately cause a large area to burn.
Compared to other lightning bolts, the ball lightning that finally appears is much more mysterious.
Portrait of ball lightning from the nineteenth century period
Photo from Lantzy
Ball lightning, also known as rolling mines, is a lightning bolt from the clouds to the ground, shaped like a "fireball", with a variety of colors, red, orange and yellow being seen the most.
Although we have all heard of ball lightning, it wasn't until June 2012 that a Chinese researcher accidentally recorded the true appearance of ball lightning while mapping radiation in the thunderstorm weather in Qinghai Province.
Ball lightning "likes" to drill holes, it can drill into the house through chimneys, windows, door cracks, turn around the house and then slip away, sometimes making a "sizzling" sound, sometimes only making a faint crackling sound. After disappearing, some odorous fumes may be left in the air.
Daoyou Dojo D2
How long is the longest lightning bolt you've ever seen?
With a snort, the night sky crossed a bolt of lightning, instantly bright as day. From the sky to the ground, how long is a lightning bolt?
Well-informed Daoist friends are coming to knock on the blackboard.
Lightning bolts are usually a few hundred meters to a few kilometers long, and some are tens of kilometers long.
The World Meteorological Organization recently announced a surprising data: the longest lightning bolt detected by humans so far is 709 kilometers, which occurred in southern Brazil on October 31, 2018; the longest lightning bolt with a single duration of 16.73 seconds occurred in northern Argentina on March 4, 2019.
What is the concept of 709 km? The length of the railway from Beijing to Zhengzhou is about 690 kilometers, that is to say, the lightning bolt has exceeded the distance from Beijing to Zhengzhou in the instant it appears.
So, where did the lightning we usually see end up going?
Shenzhen lightning positioning system can provide accurate and real-time lightning positioning information for the Pearl River Delta region and even the entire Guangdong Province. Open the Bureau of Meteorology's webpage to check the lightning distribution for the past hour.
Daoyou Dojo D3
You know nothing about the energy of lightning!
In "Ball Lightning", the male protagonist's parents are hit by ball lightning, and the body instantly turns into a gray-white sculpture, which becomes two piles of ashes when touched. In reality, reports of being struck by lightning are not uncommon. How powerful is the energy of lightning?
The Daoist friend of "ProfessionalLy Crossing the Robbery for a Hundred Years" would like to say to this:
Lightning is the "power show" of nature that we are most familiar with, lightning initially forms in the clouds, and then hits the ground through a channel, and when it comes into contact with the ground, lightning strikes back, and the current returns along the channel, in the process, most of the energy is transferred to the ground.
The temperature of lightning is usually between 17,000 ° C and 28,000 ° C, equivalent to 3 to 5 times the surface temperature of the sun, the voltage is hundreds of millions of volts, and the energy released in an instant is equivalent to the energy generated by 30 liters to 144 liters of gasoline (a liter of gasoline can make an ordinary car travel more than ten kilometers).
However, it is not so simple to use lightning.
Although the power of lightning is large, the time is too short, and the amount of power that can be really produced is not much. On average, a lightning bolt has 500 million joules of energy, and the real conversion into electricity is only more than 1400 degrees of electricity.
In addition, if you want to catch lightning, you must build special towers, converters and other facilities. However, lightning's whereabouts are uncertain and do not appear fixed at a single point. So, where to build these expensive devices is a big question.
Suddenly, a bold idea came up again, what if it was struck by lightning?
In this regard, the Daoist friends who "cross" countless times a year are "veteran players".
It has been calculated that if a person stands within 10 meters of the lightning strike point, he can feel the explosive wave equivalent to the strength of 5 kilograms of TNT explosives.
Air is generally an insulator, and lightning strikes the human body with energy capable of splitting the insulator. However, the water in the human body is electrically conductive, and although it is possible to die, it is also possible to direct electricity into the ground. Because the lightning strike process is completed in an instant, only a small amount of current passes through the body, and it is possible to survive if the rescue is timely.
According to the statistics of the meteorological department, in 2010, there were 19,982 lightning disasters in the country, of which 759 were lightning casualties, causing 717 deaths and 640 injuries. The country is calculated by 1.3 billion people, so the probability of each person being struck by lightning is about one in a million, which may not be as high as the probability of you falling out of bed.
How can you avoid being a physical lightning rod?
In the open outdoors, in the event of thunderstorms, first find a safe place to hide (don't choose under the tree).
If not, take the initiative to "lower the height", do not do the commanding heights of the entire environment (umbrellas should pay attention), the higher the easier it is to "detonate"! After all, the gun hit the head bird???
Indoors, try to cut off the power supply, do not go near windows, radiators, water pipes, etc., but also avoid the leads of electric lights, televisions, and outdoor antennas to prevent secondary discharge.
Lightning is a common natural phenomenon, nature has about 110 million lightning strikes a month, but only a quarter of the lightning strikes the ground, and most lightning only occurs in the clouds. However, the strong convective weather in summer increases, and the probability of lightning is also significantly increased, so don't join in the fun to "listen to thunder"!
Created by: New Media Team of China Science and Technology Museum
Review: Zhan Mingjin Invited expert of the new media team