When the lightning bolt moves towards the earth, a highly conductive type of oxygen builds up, which is what gives lightning its distinctive zigzag pattern.
Although lightning can appear in a variety of shapes and illuminate the sky with a dazzling flash, if you were to sketch it, you would almost surely create a zigzag. But why are thunderbolts shaped like branches? Why does lightning travel in a zigzag pattern across the sky rather than in a straight path from a thundercloud to the ground?
Although scientists are beginning to understand the cause of lightning's crookedness, many of the mechanics of lightning remain a mystery. Scientists can accurately anticipate [lunar and solar] eclipses to within a fraction of a second, according to John Lowke a physicist at the University of South Australia and the study's principal author, who spoke with Live Science. Nonetheless, there are still many mysteries surrounding typical lightning.
Lowke and colleagues propose that the distinctive zigzag pattern of lightning is caused by a highly conducting form of oxygen that builds up irregularly as the bolt travels towards the ground, sometimes over great distances, in their study, which was published in December 2022 in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics.
According to him, lightning bolts are preceded by "leaders" of electrically charged air that branch out from the base of a thundercloud in extremely quick images of lightning. These leaders are often too light to be visible with the naked eye.
According to Lowke, it is these leaders, not the last lightning strike, that create the stepped pattern.
Air typically functions as an insulator, but the leaders produce areas with significant concentrations of "singlet delta oxygen," a particular variety of highly conducting oxygen with a lower energy state.
According to Lowke, each "zig" (or "zag") of a leader, or "step," is around 165 feet (50 metres) long and is brought on by an electric charge discharge across such an area.
He noted that concentrations of this extremely conductive oxygen can branch out in all directions from where the step finishes since the last step's strong magnetic fields practically instantly produce new singlet delta oxygen molecules from the ordinary oxygen molecules in the environment.
The leader releases through a series of steps in a millionth of a second, each one followed by a brief "dark" phase in which no visible discharge is seen on the images, and ultimately strikes the ground or a tall object nearby. The lightning bolt travels back along the zigzag route of the highly conducting singlet delta oxygen as a result of that hit for around one thousandth of a second, causing a visible (and extremely loud) "return stroke," according to him. At this moment, the other leaders lose their influence and vanish.
According to Lowke, a greater understanding of lightning can help people and structures survive thunderstorms. It could guide the placement of lightning rods on towering structures like skyscrapers, radio towers, and ship superstructures, for instance.
What creates lightning is one of the unanswered questions. Although it is now widely accepted by scientists that lightning is static electricity produced by the movement of ice particles in thunderclouds, Lowke remarked that this isn't known for sure.
It's an absolutely fascinating topic, he declared. The public is unaware of the secrets and neither has been able to identify them.
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