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U2 spy plane finds thunderstorms generate gamma rays all the time

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Elderberry:
ZME Science by Tibi Puiu October 2, 2024

Astonishingly, 9 out of 10 of the studied thunderstorms produced gamma rays.

In the 1990s, NASA scientists got an unexpected surprise. While scanning the cosmos for high-energy gamma radiation bursts from supernovas and black holes, they stumbled upon a curious finding. Apparently, bursts of gamma radiation were coming from thunderstorms on Earth. Yet, the full extent of this phenomenon remained a mystery — until now.

In two new papers published in Nature, researchers have unveiled that gamma radiation in thunderstorms is far more prevalent than previously thought. Using a retrofitted U2 spy plane to get a better look at these storms, scientists discovered that thunderstorms constantly generate gamma radiation in various forms.

“There is way more going on in thunderstorms than we ever imagined,” said Steve Cummer, an engineering professor at Duke University and a coauthor on both papers. “As it turns out, essentially all big thunderstorms generate gamma rays all day long in many different forms.”

Gamma Rays in the Sky

Gamma rays, the highest energy form of light, are typically associated with violent cosmic events. But thunderstorms produce them too, albeit in a different form.

For the past three decades, scientists have known about these short but intense flashes of gamma radiation, known as terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs). They also understood that thunderstorms produce a lower-level, faint glow of gamma rays. The mechanism driving these bursts has long been attributed to the relativistic runaway electron avalanche (RREA). This phenomenon occurs when a single high-energy electron is accelerated by a thunderstorm’s electric field, colliding with air molecules to create more electrons and gamma rays in a cascading effect.

More: https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/u2-spy-plane-finds-thunderstorms-generate-gamma-rays-all-the-time/

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