Question

Lightning is caused due to discharge of oppositely charged clouds. Give reason.

Answer 1

Hint: Lightning is seen flashing between clouds and Earth, cloud to cloud or within the cloud. This flash of lightning is a voltage that occurs between positively and negatively charged particles. Thus positively charged particles of one cloud can interact with the negatively charged particles present in another cloud.

Complete answer:
 A cloud contains both positively and negatively charged particles. Lighter particles move to the top of clouds and become positively charged. On the other hand heavier particles move to the bottom of the cloud and become negatively charged. As time passes, these positive and negatively charged particles grow large enough and then lightning is released between them.

Most of the lightning takes place within the clouds, but some strikes the earth in bold flashes. In this case, the charge escapes the cloud and leads to a branching path that produces lightning between Earth and clouds.Cloud-to-cloud lightning occurs between clouds. Here, each cloud has different and opposite charged particles. Cloud-to-cloud lightning occurs without contacting the ground.

Note:Lightning is also defined as electrical discharge. Intra-cloud lightning takes place within the positively charged and negatively charged particles of the same cloud. And, cloud-to-cloud takes place within positively charged and negatively charged particles of the surrounding clouds. Scientists still debate and research on the topic of lightning.Lightning can occur on an average from 50 to 100 times in a second. The light flash contains hundreds of millions of volts and lasts only for a fraction of a second.