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What causes lightning? The answer keeps getting more interesting

78 pointsby Tomtelast Wednesday at 3:41 PM13 commentsview on HN

Comments

nomilktoday at 7:44 AM

That 7 second video of a small rocket shot into a cloud to induce a lightning strike (about half way down the article) is incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BJIiX9_c_M

Any ideas why the lightning strike appears mostly green (and momentarily purple and orange)?

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cinderelacindertoday at 7:19 AM

[flagged]

freehorsetoday at 9:45 AM

Tl;dr lightings may be caused by electrons/positrons from outer space hitting a cloud and initiating an "avalanche" of electrons.

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metalmantoday at 8:21 AM

just in case you missed it, all matter carrys a charge, and all space(and matter) has energy radiating through it, making the universe an energy gradient.

sometimes you can see it happening.

fguerraztoday at 9:56 AM

So, nothing new?

The cosmic ray hypothesis has been dominant for a few years now.

This magazine…

joshikarthikeytoday at 11:14 AM

Soooo you are telling me that we still haven't fully understood something as fundamental as lightning and it's still an active area of research...

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