Lightning holds fingerprint of antimatter

[n2doc]

By Irene Klotz | Mon Nov 23, 2009 12:05 PM

A satellite dispatched to scout out high-energy gamma rays streaming from the cosmos found that not only were flashes of gamma rays oddly close to home, but they were also powerful enough to annihilate matter.

The radiation stemmed from lightning storms on Earth. Scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Telescope recorded 17 gamma ray flashes coming from Earth that matched up with lightning tracked by the World Wide Lightning Location Network, operated out of the University of Washington in Seattle.

Previous gamma ray telescopes had detected the terrestrial gamma radiation, which was a huge surprise when it was first discovered in 1994.

Most of the gamma rays observed by Fermi and other telescopes come from the destruction of supermassive stars and other cataclysmic events far beyond the galaxy.

"Probably the last place we ever expected to see gamma rays was from Earth or Earth's atmosphere," Gerald Fishman, an astrophysicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., told Discovery News.

"It was a serendipitous discovery," he added. "For 10 or 12 years, it was treated as a scientific curiosity. No one knew what to make of it."

more:

http://news.discovery.com/space/gamma-rays-lightning-antimatter.html

[phantom power]

1. "It's very easy for me to imagine enough energy to come up with an electron-positron pair."

"An individual bolt can pack several hundred million volts at 10,000 amperes, one trillion watts, briefly burning up more electrical power than is being used in the entire United States. Monsters of one billion volts and over 100,000 amperes are not unknown."

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1997/BrookeHaramija.shtml

1e9 volts x 1e5 amps = 1e14 watts. That's 100 terawatts.
:wow:

[tridim]

2. If we could somehow... harness... this lightning. Channel it.

[phantom power]

3. Wattage is high, but sustained *energy* is unremarkable...

not worth the considerable bother of capturing it.

[tridim]

4. Sorry, I guess you didn't get the movie reference.

http://thumbnails.hulu.com/8/765/25465_512x288_manicured__tHNwW+f3RkKFN4jinzX7Aw.jpg

[phantom power]

8. Nuts. I am ashamed.

[MineralMan]

5. Yabbut....how are you going to bring the monster to life?

For that, you gotta have lightning. Everyone knows that!

[Indenturedebtor]

9. That's why my pornstar name is "White Lightening"

Oh wait did I say that out loud... shame.... unending shame :hide:

[Yavapai]

6. Self delete

[Yavapai]

7. Four of my neighbors have channeled lightning,

by installing wind generators on 60ft steel masts.