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When you see lightning, why do you hear the thunder afterwards?
Light travels much faster than sound, so we see the lightning first and hear the thunder later.
When lightning flashes in a storm cloud, both the light and the sound happen at the same moment. But light travels super, super fast, so it reaches our eyes almost right away. Sound travels much slower than light.
That is why we see the bright flash first, then wait a little, and then hear the thunder. The longer the time between the lightning and the thunder, the farther away the storm is.
Some children count the seconds when they see lightning flash. The bigger the number, the farther away the storm is. As the storm gets closer, this time gets shorter.
Quick facts
- Light travels much faster than sound.
- Lightning and thunder actually happen at the same moment.
- Thunder is a sound made when the air around the lightning heats up fast and expands.
- The longer the time between lightning and thunder, the farther away the storm is.
- Sound travels through air at about 340 metres per second.
Check what you remember
3 questions — all of them come from the quick facts above. There is no score and no wrong turn.
1. Why do we see lightning before we hear the thunder?
2. How does thunder happen?
3. If the time between lightning and thunder is long, what does that mean?
Where this comes from
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1 tr.wikipedia.org 80/100Lightning - Wikipedia
A trustworthy encyclopedia entry that explains how lightning happens.
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2 tr.wikipedia.org 78/100Thunder - Wikipedia
An encyclopedia page that explains why thunder makes a sound.
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3 nasa.gov 60/100NASA
An official organisation's page with reliable science facts about light and sound.
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