Electrical charge on raindrops

[Kalee20]

I'm thinking, big charge difference between Earth and Mars wouldn't produce a lightning strike unless space suddenly goes slightly gassy... But as electrostatic forces are so huge compared to gravity, there might be a noticeable deviation in orbits as the planets passed each other!

Would be quite a white knuckle ride if so!

Mind, if the Earth had a significant charge, we would have gained it by now, and we'd have been repelled off the surface anyway!

[Panrock]

I did a bit of googling on this, and apparently the continuous flow of charged particles from the Sun has an equalising effect.  Mind you, I'm not sure what effect this process has on the charge of the Sun.  I'd need a much better understanding of nuclear physics to comment further.

Kalee's comment is presumably based on like charges repelling.  So I guess voltage isn't just a relative concept, it can be 'absolute' too, like gravity ???  Getting out of my depth here, and may get my knuckles rapped too if I continue encouraging off-topic discussion on this thread. That is, unless Earth can be admitted as an honorary raindrop!

Steve

[Kalee20]

Yes, there is an absolute concept of voltage. Basically, a charged body attracts or repeals another charge. So allowing (or forcing) another charge to approach, results in energy being lost or gained.

It turns out that, because the force diminishes fairly rapidly with distance, if you bring your test charge up from an infinite distance, the total energy is still finite. So, that allows definition of an absolute voltage: a body has an absolute voltage of 1 volt if bringing a 1 coulomb charge up to it involves an energy of 1 joule.

Similarly, an absolute capacitance can be defined.

Putting this into context, a spherical raindrop 1mm diameter (I don't know how big Doodlebug's raindrops are in Leicestershire so I made an assumption), has a capacitance of 0.05pF.

So, if each drop has of 3 x 10^-18 coulombs - Panrock's research info - it is at a potential of 53μV (anybody! Feel free to comment on this).

53μV is small, but detectable relatively easily with modern commodity op-amps, although the capacitance of the measuring circuit, to me, will drop the voltage (pun intended!). More highly charged raindrops will be easier.

So, looking forward to more results!

[BusyBee]

Here is a reference which I came across elsewhere earlier: Field Mill.

I have been looking for a news article I read recently about the stream of particles from the sun, but cannot find it. It does tie in a bit with what has been mentioned in that charged particles do stream from the sun. I was interested in that the article mentioned that the heavier positive charges progress well but the electrons, which are lighter, tend to get pulled back. The net effect being a cloud of electrons near the sun. I was thinking 'space charge' (hence the solar system is a big valve  ). Having not found that I mention a reference here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucappst/solarwind.htm which mentions it but obviously beyond this thread so I will not attempt to go futher.