Our eyes deceive us when lightning strikes like a giant spark cracking the sky in two. That giant spark is only as big around as a golf ball. Like everything else in nature, it happens for a reason.

On Sunday, lightning touched down at Clearwater Beach, Florida, injuring eight people. Here's what happens to your body when lightning strikes.

A thunderstorm with cloud to ground lightning rages during the day in China on July 21, 2025. CREDIT: Photo by Liu Wei/Xinhua via Getty Images. Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs ...

Two friends in Australia had a close call with a lightning strike during a thunderstorm in Australia, and they captured the astonishing moment on video. Nick Panayiotou and Daniel Dudman were near a ...

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) - Lightning is beautiful in the sky, but it can be deadly on the ground. This summer, it seems as though pop-up thunderstorms have been all too common across Southeastern North ...

Editor’s note: “Behind the News” is the product of Sun staff assisted by the Sun’s AI lab, which includes a variety of tools such as Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity AI, Google Gemini and ChatGPT. Two ...

It starts with a flash that slices through the sky. Moments later, thunder follows with a deafening rumble. You are told to stay indoors, unplug your phone, or avoid touching anything metallic. Some ...

People from across the Central Coast reported hearing and seeing Tuesday night's wild thunderstorm. "There was a loud boom, boom, boom, multiple bangs. Like real loud," said Shane Hitchcock, a San ...

Your resident weather man is back with another tale of Mother Nature disrupting our National Pastime. Although this time, unlike the recent tarp attack in Illinois and tarp-nami in Tennessee, no one ...

It wasn’t outdated wiring. It wasn’t an overloaded outlet. When a home in Westport, Connecticut, caught fire during a fast-moving summer thunderstorm earlier this month, the source turned out to be ...