Scientists confirm theory that thunderstorms on Earth also produce gamma ray bursts
Prior to the 1990s, the origin of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) was uttlerly known. First detected by satellites in the early 1970s, astronomers has no idea what caused them because without a parallel detection in optical light they had no way to determine their distance. Theories suggested the bursts could be coming from billions of light years away, from within the Milky Way, from inside the solar system, and from even the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
In the 1990s it was finally proven that GRBs almost all come from very distant cosmic events, billions of light years away, each signaling the formation of a black hole.
Now researchers have confirmed the theory that GRBs are also occuring within the Earth’s atmosphere, though these GRBs have no resemblance to the astronomical ones.
During thunderclouds, two different hard radiation phenomena have so far been known to originate: Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs) and gamma-ray glows. This third phenomenon, observed and named FGFs by Østgaard et al. [2024] resembles the other two, while at the same time revealing certain characteristics separating FGFs from the others. Most noteworthy may be that FGFs are pulses of gamma-rays not associated with any detectable optical or radio signals.
“We think that FGFs could be the missing link between TGFs and gamma-ray glows, whose absence has been puzzling the atmospheric electricity community for two decades”, says lead author and Professor Nikolai Østgaard at the University of Bergen.
More information on this research can be found here. The research not only confirms the early theories as well as later detections, it adds significant nuance to the data. As noted at this second link:
“The dynamics of gamma-glowing thunderclouds starkly contradicts the former quasi-stationary picture of glows, and rather resembles that of a huge gamma-glowing boiling pot both in pattern and behavior,” said Martino Marisaldi, professor of physics and technology at the University of Bergen.
Given the size of a typical thunderstorm in the tropics, which get much larger than storms at other latitudes, this suggests that more than half of all thunderstorms in the tropics are radioactive. The researchers postulate that this low-level production of gamma radiation acts like steam boiling off a pot of water and limits how much energy can be built up inside.
This data will help refined the computer models that attempt to predict weather patterns, as it appears the phenomenon impacts the formation of thunderstorms.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Prior to the 1990s, the origin of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) was uttlerly known. First detected by satellites in the early 1970s, astronomers has no idea what caused them because without a parallel detection in optical light they had no way to determine their distance. Theories suggested the bursts could be coming from billions of light years away, from within the Milky Way, from inside the solar system, and from even the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
In the 1990s it was finally proven that GRBs almost all come from very distant cosmic events, billions of light years away, each signaling the formation of a black hole.
Now researchers have confirmed the theory that GRBs are also occuring within the Earth’s atmosphere, though these GRBs have no resemblance to the astronomical ones.
During thunderclouds, two different hard radiation phenomena have so far been known to originate: Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs) and gamma-ray glows. This third phenomenon, observed and named FGFs by Østgaard et al. [2024] resembles the other two, while at the same time revealing certain characteristics separating FGFs from the others. Most noteworthy may be that FGFs are pulses of gamma-rays not associated with any detectable optical or radio signals.
“We think that FGFs could be the missing link between TGFs and gamma-ray glows, whose absence has been puzzling the atmospheric electricity community for two decades”, says lead author and Professor Nikolai Østgaard at the University of Bergen.
More information on this research can be found here. The research not only confirms the early theories as well as later detections, it adds significant nuance to the data. As noted at this second link:
“The dynamics of gamma-glowing thunderclouds starkly contradicts the former quasi-stationary picture of glows, and rather resembles that of a huge gamma-glowing boiling pot both in pattern and behavior,” said Martino Marisaldi, professor of physics and technology at the University of Bergen.
Given the size of a typical thunderstorm in the tropics, which get much larger than storms at other latitudes, this suggests that more than half of all thunderstorms in the tropics are radioactive. The researchers postulate that this low-level production of gamma radiation acts like steam boiling off a pot of water and limits how much energy can be built up inside.
This data will help refined the computer models that attempt to predict weather patterns, as it appears the phenomenon impacts the formation of thunderstorms.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Oh wow! So this discovery might answer the “Vela Incident”. In 1979, the Vela-10 satellite detected a nuclear detonation in the southern Indian Ocean, but there was no evidence from atmospheric testing of the area of radioactive fallout. There has been many hypothesis’, rumors, and conspiracies that it was either a detonation of a South African nuclear test or a meteorite strike on the satellite.
Since the satellite was built to detect the flash, X-rays, and gamma rays from a nuclear detonation, I wonder if it saw the lightning flash and picked up the gamma rays. A false positive.
2nd paragraph: “very distance” should be “very distant”.
Michael McNeil: Thank you. Fixed.
To Jay
I think Vela was likely a nuclear test of either Israel and or South Africa
I do seem to remember some talk about Kapitsa Waves being a threat to aerospace.
Upward positive giants (superbolts) can trail off as Blue Jets if I recall correctly.
Jeff Wright: Vela was not a bomb test by anyone. The Vela constellation of satellites were launched by the U.S. to monitor the world for any above-ground nuclear bomb tests, in violiation of treaties between the U.S. and Russia. To do this they looked down for the kind of gamma ray radiation that such tests would give off.
The sensors however were not sophisticated. They actually looked in all directions, and to the surprise of everyone, they also detected very short bursts coming from space randomly. Thus GRBs were discovered. It took almost three decades thereafter to discover that they were cosmological in distance.