Images of Lightning Unfolding, Frame by Frame
News
published
Lightning, downward leader forms
Researchers collected these images using an ultra-high-speed video camera capable of capturing 10,000 frames per second. Here, what is known as the downward leader starts propagating from a storm cloud.
Upward leader sprouts from building
The downward leader grows as an upward connecting leader sprouts from the tallest building in the city of Guangzhou in Guangdong, China.
Both leaders grow
The leaders rapidly grow toward each other.
Leaders about to touch
The leaders are about to touch and then...
Bam!
Bam! They two leaders connect in what is known as a lightning stroke.
Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now
Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.
Live Science Contributor
Laura Poppick is a contributing writer for Live Science, with a focus on earth and environmental news. Laura has a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Bachelor of Science degree in geology from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Laura has a good eye for finding fossils in unlikely places, will pull over to examine sedimentary layers in highway roadcuts, and has gone swimming in the Arctic Ocean.
More about weather
LATEST ARTICLES