🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1240@newsserver.cs.uwindsor.ca> petro@server.uwindsor.ca (PETRO DAVID              ) writes:
>Here is a question that someone asked me that I wasn't too sure of the answer.
>
>Does lightning originate from the ground or the sky?
>

Lightning is the flow of electrons through the air at the point of
higest differential between two static charges.  The charged masses
may be either two disaperate masses of air or the solid surface
of the planet beneath.  Since electrons are the free moving
portion of the atomic structure, and electrons are negatively
charged, we say electricity flows from the negative pole to
the positive.  Therefore, lightning can come from the ground
to the sky or from the sky to the ground depending entirely
on the location of the negative sum charge.  

From some reading I have done on lightning a strike, when
slowed by a highspeed camera, is shown to go from ground to sky
then from sky to ground in the same visible strike. 
The supportable theory here is that the initial strike
results in enough of a change that the receiving end becomes
more negative than the originating end.	When this happens a
weaker strike occurs following the same ionized path as the
first strike back to the originating point.

This "oscillation" continues until the blance of energy is
low enough that the ionized path cannot be maintained.

I read once that more than 1 million amps ( i don't remember the
exact number quoted) flows between the earth's surface and the
atmosphere every minute of every day.



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