Lightning essays

Lightning essays Lightning is beautiful, dangerous, and mysterious all at the same time. The flashes that can cause citywide power outages and raging forest fires. While the average lightning bolt is only about five kilometers long and the width of a finger, it heats the surrounding air to a temperature five times hotter than the surface of the Sun and produces enough energy to power a 100-watt light bulb for three months. In this project I plan to make lightning using only aluminum pie plate, ball-point pen, thumb tack, wool sock, and a piece of styrofoam. I first push the thumbtack up through the center of the pie plate. Then I push the end of the pen onto the tack. After that I rubbed the styrofoam quickly with the wool sock. After that I pick up the aluminum pie plate with the pen and put it down on top of the styrofoam. Last I turned out the lights and slowly brought my finger close to the pie plate. Then I heard, felt, and saw a tiny spark. By now you probably wonder what is happening. As I rub the styrofoam, it stole electrons from the wool and becomes negatively charged. Charges that are alike move apart and charges that are different attract. The electrons on the styrofoam repelled the electrons pie plate and pushed them to the top edge of the plate. The pen acts as an insulator, preventing the built-up charge from moving through me to the ground until I was ready. When I brought my finger close to the edge of the plate, the repelled electrons jump across the gap and escaped through my body, giving me a small shock. When I turned off the lights, I was able to see the discharge. The sky is filled with electric charge. In a calm sky, the plus and minus charges are evenly interspersed throughout the atmosphere. Therefore, a calm sky has a neutral charge. Inside a thunderstorm, electric charge is spread out differently. A thunderstorm consists of ice crystals and hailstones. The ice crystals have a plus charge, while the hailstones have ...