Lightning

Lightning has caught my attention while I’ve been assigned to translate a documentary in Astro’s Naked Science series. The documentary is about lightning that not many people know the importance of it. Do you know a lightning strike is faster than a speeding bullet? Do you know it is 6 times hotter than the surface of the sun? And what is the importance of lightning to us? Is it because of God wants to kill Satan (as I’ve always been told during my childhood)? Or do lightening has significant role in our planet?

Well, when lightening strike, a giant spark of static electricity tears through our atmosphere at 60 million miles an hour. Up to a billion volts rip the air apart – in that instant, the current creates light waves, and we see a brilliant bolt of light race across the sky. When this happened, air inside is heats up to more than 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It expands so rapidly it explodes – that is why we hear a deafening clap of thunder. And all this happens in less than the blink of an eye up to eight million times every day. This is one nature’s most frequent, best observed phenomena. But it’s also one of the least understood.

Why most of the people die when lightning strike directly to them? Actually, the number one cause of death from lightning is cardiac arrest at the time of the injury. How? This is because when lightning strike, the current hitches a lift on the body’s own electrical highway. Route one: the autonomic nervous system. It runs down your spine and controls involuntary functions: breathing, digestion, heart beat. Routes two and three: blood and muscle. Full of electrolytes - acids, salts and other chemicals. Essential for life – and electrically conductive. Together they offer the current a route through the body – straight to your heart.

The heart’s internal pacemaker generates electrical currents that control its rhythm. Hit this with a high voltage current and the rhythm is disrupted – or worse. But even if you survive the shock, a series of bizarre and traumatic injuries could still assault your body. A strike can cause blood vessels to spasm – and leave you temporarily paralyzed. A strike near the head sends current into the eyes – and can detach the retina. The shockwave can rupture the eardrums, and can sometimes fracture the skull. Sound frightening? Don’t be, as you will be shocked to know why God actually creates lightning – in Lightning Chapter 2.

Don Corleone.