• Question: Why does the bang come after lighning?

    Asked by 283ntrd34 to Irene on 16 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Irene Regan

      Irene Regan answered on 16 Nov 2015:

      Hi great Q:)
      Thunder is the sound that accompanies lightning during a thunderstorm. Sounds simple enough, but why does lightning even make a sound?

      Any sound you hear is made up of vibrations. The vibrations travel as a sound wave through the air, until they reach your ear. Lightning is a huge discharge of electricity, and this electricity shoots through the air, causing vibrations to be formed in two ways:

      1. The electricity passes through the air and causes air particles to vibrate. The vibrations are heard as sound.

      2. The lightning is also very hot and heats up the air around it. Hot air expands, and in this case the air expands very quickly, pushing apart the air particles with force and creating more vibrations.

Comments

  • Photo: Chloe

    Chloe commented on :

    Light travels much faster than sound so although they leave the source at the same time you will see the lightening before you hear the thunder because the thunder travels slower than the lightening.

  • Photo: Uday

    Uday commented on :

    Speed of Sound : 343.2 meters per second
    Speed of Light : 300000000 meters per second.

    Imagine the difference between them. Its really huge. Hence we see lightning first later on comes the thunder sound.