ProfuselyQuarky said:
Particles hit each other every moment—both charged and not charged. Why would this create a noise in the sky?
Just something to think about!
You are too cute :)
Force between charged particles can be described as
F=qE
where E is the electrical field intensity and q is the charge (of a single particle, obs)
For a free charged particle it's energy is (integrated over the force between two charged particles).
W=qU=\int_{-\infty}^{r}\frac{qQ_2}{4\pi \epsilon_0 r^2}dr
I think :D
Anyway, it amounts to something like
qU=\frac{qQ_2}{4\pi \epsilon_0 r}
which means we have a potential of
U=\frac{Q_2}{4\pi \epsilon_0 r}
but we should say
U=\frac{\sum_{k=1}^{N}Q_{2k}}{4\pi \epsilon_0 r}
to consider all charges.
This potential and also electrical field intensity can be very high and as we look at how this has been derived we see that the energy was meant to be explained for a single charge (q). For the potential we can then strike q to get only Q2. But Q2 is actually the sum of all charges considered.
Now we have a rather large potential for lots of Q2. Equally, we may view another group of charges as Q3. And if the number of charges are hugely different the potential difference is also huge.
Now, my knowledge stops here, but high voltages got to be able to be created in the clouds already and thunder may therefore happen even
within the clouds.
Another way of viewing it is that there may be charge gradients within the clouds that can result in discharges within the clouds when the electric field intensity is greater than the dielectric strength of air, I think :)
Edison
PS
I am also not a physisist, obviously :D