Paragraph on “What is lightning?” complete paragraph for Class 9, Class 10, Class 11 and Class 12

What is lightning?

When something has an electric charge, ether positive or negative, the electricity tries o ‘low away to nearby objects. The charge tries to spread itself out evenly. This is why electricity sparks from the comb to your hand as shown opposite. The electric charge jumps across the narrow gap through the air.

An American inventor who lived 200 years ago, Benjamin Franklin, thought that lightning was something to do with electricity. Franklin tried a very dangerous experiment. He flew a kite on a metal wire right into a thundercloud. He found he could get a spark from a metal key on the end of the wire across to his finger. This showed that the thunder-cloud had an electric charge which was con-ducted down the wire. The experiment was dangerous because a strong electric charge flowing down the wire and through his body might have killed him !

Some thunderclouds are positively charged and some are negatively charged. If two clouds with opposite charges are close together, the charges may jump across the space between them to cancel each other out. This makes a huge electric spark from one cloud to another and this is what lightning is ! The spark makes a very loud noise too, and this bang is the thunder we hear.

Sometimes a charged cloud is nearer to the ground than to another cloud with the opposite charge. If this happens the electric charge may jump to the ground. This can be very dangerous because the charges are very strong. Tall buildings or trees are especially likely to be struck by lightning. For this reason you should never shelter under trees during a thunderstorm. Of course, even if you were out during a thunderstorm it is very, very unlikely that you would be struck.

To protect tall buildings, lightning conductors are fixed to the top. A lightning conductor is a sharp metal spike connected to the ground by a thick wire. The charge from the cloud flows to the Earth through this.