Why are some lightning red?

Lightning is the light produced by the violent movement of clouds. It ionizes the air and produces light with different wavelengths, which are short and high in energy, close to purple light. On the contrary, it is a red light.

Generally, lightning is mostly blue, red or white, but sometimes there are black lightning. Due to the action of sunlight, cloud electric field and some physical and chemical factors in the atmosphere, a particle with very active chemical properties will be produced in the sky.

Under the action of electromagnetic field, these particles gather together to form many spheres. This ball will not give off energy, but it can exist for a long time. It has no light and is opaque, so it can only be observed during the day.

Extended data

The reason for the formation of lightning is that the airflow in thunderstorm clouds will generate static electricity due to the friction and decomposition of water molecules. There are two kinds of electricity:

One is the positive charge of positively charged particles.

One is the negative charge of negatively charged particles. Positive and negative charges attract each other, just like magnets.

The positive charge is at the top of the cloud, and the negative charge attracts the positive charge on the ground at the bottom of the cloud. The air between the cloud and the ground is an insulator, which will prevent the current with bipolar charge from passing through. When the charge in the thunderstorm cloud and the charge on the ground become strong enough, these two parts of charge will break through the air barrier and contact to form strong current, positive charge and negative charge contact.

When these opposite charges meet, neutralization (discharge) will occur. Strong charge neutralization will release a lot of light and heat, and these released light will form lightning.

Most lightning strikes will happen twice in a row. The first time it was called lead flash, it was an invisible air that went down to the place close to the ground. This charged air is like a wire, which establishes a guide for the second current. At the moment when the pilot is close to the ground, a tie-back current jumps up along this guide path, and the flash generated by this tie-back is usually seen lightning.

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