The intriguing science of microlightning
“On early Earth, there were water sprays all over the place—into crevices or against rocks, and they can accumulate and create this chemical reaction,” said Richard Zare, one of the study authors and a professor at Stanford University. “I think this overcomes many of the problems people have with the Miller-Urey hypothesis,” he added.
Zare and his team performed an interesting experiment to demonstrate the above-mentioned chemical reaction. They first studied the process that enables water droplets to gain electric charges as they turn into a spray or splash.
Researchers observed that smaller droplets carried a negative charge and larger droplets had a positive charge. Surprisingly, when these oppositely charged droplets were brought close to each other, the study authors noticed ‘microlightning’, i.e., tiny flashes of electricity. The process is similar to how lightning forms in clouds but on a much smaller scale.