For as long as people have watched storms roll across the sky, lightning has inspired awe and fear. You can see the flash and ...

How is lightning initiated in thunderclouds? This is difficult to answer – how do you measure electric fields inside large, dangerously charged clouds? It was discovered, more or less by coincidence, ...

How is lightning initiated in thunderclouds? This is difficult to answer—how do you measure electric fields inside large, dangerously charged clouds? It was discovered, more or less by coincidence, ...

A group of scientists say they successfully steered bolts of lightning using laser technology during a storm in Switzerland, demonstrating a potential new method to protect infrastructure from ...

As well as producing spectacular lightning shows, thunderclouds can also sometimes emit strange long-lasting bursts of gamma rays. Now, a group of researchers in Japan claims to have the best evidence ...

Aiming high-power pulses of laser light into a thunderstorm has helped a French–German collaboration to deliberately trigger electrical activity in thunderclouds. Researchers could soon have a better ...

Scientists have uncovered a mysterious phenomenon which casts new light on our understanding of lightning and could potentially reveal a new mechanism behind what causes these electrical discharges.

The wildfires currently tearing through Australia aren’t just unprecedented—they’re catastrophic, as one fire researcher put it. Climate change and fierce heat waves have dried the landscape into ...

How is lightning initiated in thunderclouds? This is difficult to answer -- how do you measure electric fields inside large, dangerously charged clouds? It was discovered, more or less by coincidence, ...