don't. Because it comes from the SUN.

Howdy light bulbs, Trace here comin' atcha from DNews with your weekly space update!

Lightning is a fairly common way for nature to showcase its raw power. Molecules in the

clouds bump and grind on each other, creating a buildup of static electricity. As the cloud

becomes positively charged, electrons snake up from the negatively charged ground called

step leaders. When the electrons meet SHHHHKKKKK!! Lightning! Science is awesome.

Anyway, that's what we USED to think, turns out there's a bigger, badder baller on the

block. The friggin' SUN.

A new study in Environmental Research Letters found the solar wind may be affecting the

amount of lightning we're seeing on the ground. The sun is constantly producing a stream of

electrons and protons travelling a million miles an hour flowing in all directions away

from it. This is commonly called the solar wind -- because Earth is bathed in the high-speed

little buggers constantly, and during periods of high solar activity, like now, the solar

wind "blows" even stronger.

Though we think of the sun as a solid ball, it's a giant nuclear furnace made of gas that

takes 27 days to fully rotate. The particles it emits are therefore fluctuating in a predictable

pattern as well. The scientists describe the solar wind as waves, because it can vary in

density, temperature and charge, based on where the sun is in its cycle.

When these high-energy particles hit Earth's magnetic field, we get aurora, and they usually

just bounce off and keep going. However, when a relatively slow wave is overtaken by a relatively

fast wave it overwhelms Earth's magnetic shield and some of the particles break into the upper

atmosphere, charging up the clouds and causing an increase in either frequency or intensity

of lightning. They weren't exactly clear on which of those it was...

It's not just our sun causing this static buildup, when OTHER stars explode millions

of light-years away, they ALSO send out these high-energy particles and some of them do

eventually hit us too. Mathematically, this is mind boggling, right? What are the chances

of a star exploding millions of years ago at JUST the right time to shoot out a particle

which after millions of years will hit US and cause a lightning strike that will FINALLY

give me super powers? WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?!

Knowing this, the scientists say, might help improve long-term weather forecasting. Somehow.

Are you blown away by this solar wind thing? Tell us in the comments below and get funky

with it. Make sure you subscribe and also, space friends, NEXT Wednesday we doing a Google

Hangout with NASA/JPL and it's going to rock. Literally. Because we're talking about Meteors.

Check the description for the link to RSVP and get your questions ready! I'm super excited

about this, it's going to be every month!

Subscribe for more videos every day of the week and come say hey to us on twitter at-DNews,

or me at-TraceDominguez, and thanks for watching, y'all are the bestest.