Images of Lightning Unfolding, Frame by Frame

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Lightning, downward leader forms

(Image credit: Weitao Lu, Luwen Chen, Ying Ma, V.A. Rakov, Yan Gao, Yang Zhang, Qiyuan Yin, and Yijun Zhang.)

Researchers collected these images using an ultra-high-speed video camera capable of capturing 10,000 frames per second. Here, what is known as the downward leader starts propagating from a storm cloud.

Upward leader sprouts from building

(Image credit: Weitao Lu, Luwen Chen, Ying Ma, V.A. Rakov, Yan Gao, Yang Zhang, Qiyuan Yin, and Yijun Zhang.)

The downward leader grows as an upward connecting leader sprouts from the tallest building in the city of Guangzhou in Guangdong, China.

Both leaders grow

(Image credit: Weitao Lu, Luwen Chen, Ying Ma, V.A. Rakov, Yan Gao, Yang Zhang, Qiyuan Yin, and Yijun Zhang)

The leaders rapidly grow toward each other.

Leaders about to touch

(Image credit: Weitao Lu, Luwen Chen, Ying Ma, V.A. Rakov, Yan Gao, Yang Zhang, Qiyuan Yin, and Yijun Zhang)

The leaders are about to touch and then...

Bam!

(Image credit: Weitao Lu, Luwen Chen, Ying Ma, V.A. Rakov, Yan Gao, Yang Zhang, Qiyuan Yin, and Yijun Zhang)

Bam! They two leaders connect in what is known as a lightning stroke.

Laura Poppick
Laura Poppick
Live Science Contributor
Laura Poppick is a contributing writer for Live Science, with a focus on earth and environmental news. Laura has a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Bachelor of Science degree in geology from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Laura has a good eye for finding fossils in unlikely places, will pull over to examine sedimentary layers in highway roadcuts, and has gone swimming in the Arctic Ocean.