What is the speed of lightning?

The speed of lightning per second is 106 meters.

Lightning itself is a discharge phenomenon, that is to say, the speed of lightning is the speed of electron movement, which may be extremely fast (several kilometers to hundreds of kilometers per second), but much slower than the speed of light (300,000 kilometers per second). Because they all spread through changing electromagnetic fields, the propagation speed of electromagnetic waves is the speed of light, and visible light is a kind of electromagnetic waves.

However, the movement speed of electrons in a conductor is generally much lower than the speed of light because of the resistance formed by matter. Because electrons have mass, the speed of electrons in vacuum can only approach the speed of light, but not reach the speed of light.

Related introduction

Lightning is a discharge phenomenon, so it follows certain physical laws, and its speed is affected by many factors such as air conductivity. Many people think that the speed of lightning is the speed of light, mainly because the speed at which the light emitted by lightning travels to our eyes is regarded as the speed of lightning itself, and lightning and thunder occur at the same time.

But the light of lightning travels to our eyes much faster than that of thunder, which is why we always see lightning first and then hear thunder. Light travels in the air at a speed of 300,000 kilometers per second. At this speed, 1 s can run seven and a half times around the equator of the earth, and the speed of sound propagation in the air is about 340 meters per second, almost one-ninth of the speed of light.