Simple and complete answers to 12 questions that we have all asked ourselves many times

Clouds are made of tiny water droplets. It’s so cold high up in the sky that ice crystals start to form inside the clouds. Then the ice crystals move to the top of the cloud and the water droplets stay near the bottom of the cloud. When they move past each other and rub against each other, they make static electricity. You can make static electricity by rubbing a balloon against your hair and then the static electricity makes your hair stand up. Sometimes, if you have socks on and you rub your feet on a carpet, then it makes a tiny shock when you touch somebody else. That is also static electricity. The static electricity in the cloud makes the ice crystals positively charged and the water droplets negatively charged. If you have ever played with magnets, you will know that the positive side of a magnet is attracted to the negative side of another magnet – but it pushes away the positive side of another magnet. Opposites attract each other: those with the same charge (that is, positive or negative) push each other away. The same thing happens with the negatively charged water droplets near the bottom of the thunder cloud.

July 12, 2022 | 8:09 pm