Not knowing any significant level of detail about it, I’d assume that there’s a lot of energy in lightning. When things with megavolt+ potentials cause stuff to happen that normally requires megavolt+ potentials, I am… unsurprised.
That’s like saying “Tom (whose a millionaire) should be able to pay of the (multi-trillion dollar) national debt because both involve a lot of money”. It’s not just a matter of energy, it’s a matter of putting enough of it into a sufficiently small space. Producing X-ray normally involves phenomena capable of splitting atoms, which lightning can’t do (as far as we know).
Lightning produces potential differences of many million volts. When an electron or proton goes across the difference of potentials of 1 million volts, it acquires energy of 1 million electron volts, which is enough to produce some high energy x-rays, and even nuclear reactions. Air pressure has an effect though, as the electron won’t gain much energy if it keeps colliding with air—unless the electric field strength (volts per meter—it is similar to slope) is pretty high. Lightnings propagate weird -with a streamer going ahead—near the streamer it is plausible that electric field is strong enough.
It’s not that different from early linear particle accelerators powered with a big Van-de-Graaf generator. A lot of energy ends up in single charged particle because that particle moved across big potential difference.
. Producing X-ray normally involves phenomena capable of splitting atoms, which lightning can’t do (as far as we know).
Producing x-rays normally does not require splitting or transforming nuclei. The traditional way to make x-rays, say, in a dentists office, is just colliding high-energy electrons with a metal plate. It’s mildly interesting to do the same in free air, but it doesn’t seem to require any sort of new physics. Atmospheric electromagnetic fields are, trivially, strong enough to ionize a lot of air, and that gets you some pretty fast-moving electrons.
That’s like saying “Tom (whose a millionaire) should be able to pay of the (multi-trillion dollar) national debt because both involve a lot of money”. It’s not just a matter of energy, it’s a matter of putting enough of it into a sufficiently small space. Producing X-ray normally involves phenomena capable of splitting atoms, which lightning can’t do (as far as we know).
Lightning produces potential differences of many million volts. When an electron or proton goes across the difference of potentials of 1 million volts, it acquires energy of 1 million electron volts, which is enough to produce some high energy x-rays, and even nuclear reactions. Air pressure has an effect though, as the electron won’t gain much energy if it keeps colliding with air—unless the electric field strength (volts per meter—it is similar to slope) is pretty high. Lightnings propagate weird -with a streamer going ahead—near the streamer it is plausible that electric field is strong enough.
It’s not that different from early linear particle accelerators powered with a big Van-de-Graaf generator. A lot of energy ends up in single charged particle because that particle moved across big potential difference.
Producing x-rays normally does not require splitting or transforming nuclei. The traditional way to make x-rays, say, in a dentists office, is just colliding high-energy electrons with a metal plate. It’s mildly interesting to do the same in free air, but it doesn’t seem to require any sort of new physics. Atmospheric electromagnetic fields are, trivially, strong enough to ionize a lot of air, and that gets you some pretty fast-moving electrons.