Comtemporary Science Research (Term 2)

In term 2, I did research on lightning. Lightning is a slash of spark accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes even during volcanic eruptions or dust storms. A bolt of lightning can travel at a speed of 220,000km/h and can mount to temperatures as high as 30000 degrees Celsius. Did you know that an irrational fear of lightning and thunder is astraphobia. The study or science of lightning is also known as fulminology, and someone who studies lightning is referred to as a fulminologist.

Lightning has the ability to heat the air in its immediate vicinity to about 20000 degree Celsius, which is about three times the the temperature of the surface of the sun. The sudden heating effect and the expansion of air results in a sound wave, which is known as thunder. The voltage involved is proportional to the length of the bolt. When liquid and ice particles above the freezing level collide, they build up large electric fields in the clouds. Once these electric fields are large enough, a giant " spark" occurs between them and the ground. Cloud-to-ground lightning usually occurs near the boundary between where the darkest clouds are, to where there is a lighter fuzzy appearance of the ground. Objects that are struck by lightning can catch a fire, but since the flash is so brief, they might even survive without a scratch at all.