Lightning — natural phenomenon is as amazing as it is frightening. And despite the fact that over the past hundred years science has made good progress in studying a variety of things, lightning is still practically not studied. We know enough to be more or less safe from them — but that’s all.
Interesting facts about lightning
- The temperature of lightning sometimes exceeds the temperature of the solar surface by several times.
- The speed of a lightning discharge is up to 60 thousand kilometers per hour.
- The average lightning discharge lasts one to two tenths of a second.
- Any lightning emits powerful X-rays — about twice as powerful as an X-ray machine in a hospital.
- Every second, about two thousand thunderstorms rage on our planet, and about 50 lightning strikes the surface (interesting facts about the Earth).
- Contrary to the popular saying, lightning can easily strike the same place several times in a row.
- Most lightning strikes in the world in Argentina.
- Lightning occurs not only on Earth, but also on other planets — for example, on Jupiter or Venus (interesting facts about Venus).
- The length of a lightning discharge can reach twenty kilometers, but usually does not exceed two or three kilometers.
- Three-quarters of all lightning discharges between clouds, and only a quarter reaches the surface.
- In the city of Tororo, in the country of Uganda, on average 250 days a year, you can see at least one lightning.
- US military, Major Summerford, three times was subjected to lightning strikes, the last of which undermined his health and actually brought him to the grave. Interestingly, after the burial, lightning struck him for the fourth time, destroying the tombstone.
- Of trees, lightning most often strikes oak, and least often — in beech. Perhaps this has something to do with the presence or absence of certain oils in the wood.
- American Roy Sullivan is listed in the Guinness Book of Records — lightning struck him seven times, but could not kill or maim.
- Lightning causes more than ten thousand forest fires every year.
- Thanks to satellite observation, it was found that every year about 1.4 billion lightning strikes in the Earth’s atmosphere.
- Lightning, on impact, creates a shock wave that can kill a person, even if the lightning itself does not touch him.
- According to statistics, about 75% people survive after a lightning strike.
- Special power plants are able to catch lightning and accumulate their energy, then using it for peaceful purposes.
- The air next to a lightning discharge heats up to one and a half thousand degrees. This is comparable to the temperature of pyroclastic flows flowing out of a volcano during an eruption (interesting facts about volcanoes).
- Lightning is the least likely to be observed in Egypt — about once every two hundred years.