Hello my fellow steamians. Today in #celestialchallenge initiated by @sirknight I'm going to discuss about lightning.
Lightning is a sudden electrostatic discharge that occurs typically during a thunderstorm. This discharge occurs between electrically charged regions of a cloud (called intra-cloud lightning or IC), between two clouds (CC lightning), or between a cloud and the ground (CG lightning).
The charged regions in the atmosphere temporarily equalize themselves through this discharge referred to as a flash. A lightning flash can also be a strike if it involves an object on the ground. Lightning creates light in the form of black body radiation from the very hot plasma created by the electron flow, and sound in the form of thunder.
USES OF LIGHTNING
Since the late 1980s, there have been several attempts to investigate the possibility of harvesting lightning energy. A single bolt of lightning carries a relatively large amount of energy (approximately 5 billion joules or about the energy stored in 145 litres of petrol). However, this energy is concentrated in a small location and is passed during an extremely short period of time (microseconds); therefore, extremely high electrical power is involved. 5 billion joules over 10 microseconds is equal to 5×1014 (or 500 trillion) watts. Because lightning bolts vary in voltage and current, a more average calculation would be 1×1010 (or 10 billion) watts.
We all know that lightning can be dangerous. Each year many people are killed and a great deal of property damage occurs because of lightning. We don’t usually consider the benefits of this powerful force.
Lightning produces materials critical to life itself. All living things depend on the chemical element nitrogen. Your body contains molecules known as proteins. Proteins are made up of several elements, including nitrogen. Nitrogen is essential for proteins but it is very hard to make into proteins. Even though 78 percent of our atmosphere is made of nitrogen, we do not get any nitrogen from the air we breathe. We simply inhale and exhale the nitrogen without using it. The nitrogen in the air has three electron bonds between the atoms which is a very strong and stable chemical arrangement. It takes a great amount of energy to break these bonds to free nitrogen to make a protein.
When lightning slices through the atmosphere, it knocks electrons from the nitrogen atoms. The atoms are then free to combine with oxygen and hydrogen in the atmosphere forming nitrates. Rain carries this new compound to the earth enriching the soil with nitrates which are the building blocks of proteins. Plants synthesize these nitrates into proteins which can be used by animals and by us.
Without lightning and the other processes built into creation to process nitrogen, life could not exist. There is a purpose and design in lightning. The Designer has also given us the intelligence to avoid many of the negative side effects of this powerful force.