十万个为什么·科学启蒙30篇（2）

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雷声和闪电是如何产生的？

Lightning occurs when massive static electricity builds up inside storm clouds due to collisions between ice particles and water droplets.
When the electrical difference between cloud and ground—or between two clouds—becomes too great, a sudden discharge happens.
This discharge heats the surrounding air to over 30,000°C, causing it to expand explosively and create a shock wave we hear as thunder.
Because light travels much faster than sound, we always see lightning before hearing thunder — roughly 1 second per 340 meters.
A single lightning bolt can carry over one billion volts of electricity and last just 30 microseconds.
Although lightning looks like a single flash, it often consists of several rapid strokes traveling along the same path.
Thunder cannot occur without lightning, but sometimes distant lightning is too far to see — we call this 'heat lightning'.
Wearing rubber-soled shoes won’t protect you from lightning, since voltage overwhelms such small insulation.