Thunderstorms create anti-matter and Gamma Rays.

[JimD]

--------- #1238 - Do Thunderstorms Create Anti-Matter with Lightning?

- Gamma Ray telescopes were launched into space to study distance sources of Gamma Ray radiation and flares. Imagine our surprise when the Gamma Ray flares were found coming from the tops of thunderstorms in the opposite direction we were looking.

- Attachments - Lightning storm

- The biggest change in astronomy in recent decades is the expansion of the telescopes ability to “see” beyond visible light. Satellite and space telescopes have allowed the “visibility” of a wider look at the full electromagnetic spectrum. For two reasons, first these telescopes operate above the Earth’s atmosphere and secondly the technology to design detectors that are equivalent to cameras of visible light only they can detect infrared, ultra-violet, X-rays, and even Gamma Rays. ( See footnote 6 ).

- Gamma Ray telescopes were first launched in 1994 to search for distant Quasars, or massive supernovae explosions, that were thought to be the source of Gamma rays in the cosmos. Quasars were the most distant objects we can see and were thought to be powered by massive Blackholes in far away galaxies. The jets from these powerful rotating Blackholes create beams of Gamma Rays. These beams were first detected as periodic flashes like the rotating beam from a lighthouse.

- We soon learned that Gamma Rays resulting from matter and anti-matter annihilations were also occurring in the region of the Blackhole at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy. It is thought that the intense energies in this region produced electrons and anti-electrons that in turn produced Gamma Rays because when they get near each other they would annihilated all their mass into a burst of energy. Anti-electrons are also called “positrons”.

- Whenever matter and anti-matter come in contact with each other they instantly and totally convert all their mass to energy according to E = mc^2. This radiation energy is in the form of high energy electromagnetic radiation called Gamma Rays.

- Anti-matter is the same as ordinary matter except the particles have the opposite electric charge. Electrons are ordinary matter with a negative charge. Positrons are anti-matter with a positive charge. It is the same with protons that are positively charged and anti-protons that are negatively charged.

- Theory has it that all matter and anti-matter was originally created from pure energy after the Big Bang in equal amounts. It is a mystery today why we can find so much ordinary matter, but, not an equal amount of anti-matter. Somehow, matter became dominate in our Universe. Otherwise, everything would have been annihilate back to pure energy by now. Only very small amounts of anti-matter can be created on Earth, using high energy particle accelerators. Some anti-matter is also detected from high energy Cosmic Rays entering the upper atmosphere from outer space.

- Imagine astronomer’s surprise when the Gamma Ray space telescope began detecting anti-matter and Gamma Rays being generated in the tops of thunderstorms here on Earth. This phenomenon was first discovered in 1994 when the first Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was launched. The phenomenon was dubbed Terrestrial Gamma-Ray flashes. These were discovered quite by accident.

- This past week astronomers have used the data from the newest Fermi Gamma-Ray space telescope, launched in 2009, to announce the source of the Terrestrial Gamma-Ray flashes to be anti-matter particles being flung into space from the tops of thunderstorms here on Earth. This discovery implies that Earth’s thunderstorms might routinely produce anti-matter beams caused by the lightning they create. While searching for the intense radiation coming from the deaths of super massive stars our telescopes got hit from behind by Terrestrial Gamma Ray flashes coming from our own backyard.

- Thunderstorms can create strong electric fields which can trigger an upward avalanche of high-energy electrons and ions that collide with atoms in the upper atmosphere. These type collisions are very similar to those of Cosmic Rays entering the atmosphere from outer space. Cosmic Rays are electrons or ions, (which are the bare nuclei of atoms), traveling through space at near the speed of light. Whenever high energy particles directly collide with or get deflected by the air molecules in the upper atmosphere Gamma Ray radiation is produced, as well as a shower of other fundamental particles.

- There are so many Gamma Rays being produced at such high energies that some are transformed back into matter - anti-matter pairs. When Gamma Rays are transformed back into electron and positron pairs the energies exactly match E= mc^2. And, when the electrons and positrons annihilate each other the same exact amount of energy is released in the form of Gamma Rays at 511,000 electron-volts.

- E = mc^2 and E = h * f. The energy, “E”, produced in the annihilation is always the same because the masses of the electrons and positrons ,”m”, is always the same. And, the speed of light squared ,”c^2”, is always a constant. So, mc^2 for each electron or positron is always the same. Likewise, the energy ,”E”, is proportional to the Gamma Ray frequency, ”f”, in cycles per second. The constant of proportionality for this equality is Planck’s Constant of Action, “h”, which is 4.136 *10^-15 electron-volts per cycle. So, when energy at 511,000 electron-volts is detected by the telescope’s detectors astronomers know the source was electron-positron annihilations. ( See footnote 2)

- Mother Earth and her lightning bolts are much stronger than we had given them credit for. A lightning bolt can travel 140,000 miles per hour. It can reach temperatures of 30,000 Centigrade. Lightning can occur with both negative and positive polarities. An average bolt of negative lightning is carrying 30,000 amperes of current. That is equivalent to 500,000,000 joules of energy. ( For comparison an 18 wheeler traveling down the highway at 60 miles per hour carries 2,200,000 joules of kinetic energy. You would need 227 of these trucks in a convoy to equal the energy of one bolt of lightning.

- Lightning occurs somewhere on Earth 44 times every second, a total of 1,400,000,000 flashes of lightning per year. ( See footnote 3). 75% of the flashes are cloud-to-cloud. 25% of the flashes are cloud-to-ground. A smaller percentage of 50 Terrestrial Gamma-Ray flashes occur each day.

- Large lightning bolts can carry up to 120,000 amperes. Positive lighting can carry currents up to 300,000 amperes. Positive lightning is 10 times stronger than the average negative lightning because it originates at the highest elevations in the thunderstorm. The voltages involved in these current bolts is proportional to the length of the bolt. Bolts can have a potential difference of 1,000,000,000,000 volts.

- To break down the conduction of air requires 3,000,000 volts per meter. The average “peak” power of a single lightning stroke is 1,000,000,000,000 watts and it will last for 30 microseconds. (See footnote 4)

- When lightning heats the air to 30,000 Centigrade the air rapidly expands into a clap of thunder. At first it is traveling at supersonic speeds in a shockwave. The shockwave soon decays into an acoustic wave we call thunder. The dissipating rumble of thunder is caused by the time delays of sound coming from different parts of the stroke of lightning. The sound of thunder travels along the ground at 1125 feet per second. Therefore, a lightning flash of light preceding its thunder by 5 seconds is about one mile away. ( See footnote 5)

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(1) Even on a sunny day electricity is flowing between the Earth and the ionosphere. The Earth and its ionosphere are a giant capacitor always carrying a negative charge of 500,000 Coulombs at 300,000 volts. There is a constant flow of electricity of 1,350 amperes traveling through the atmosphere which has an electrical resistance of 200 ohms. The power equivalent of this electric flow is 400,000,000 watts. On an ordinary day without the thunderstorms the Earth’s atmosphere is storing 150,000,000,000 joules of energy. That is a good day. Now we know on a bad day it has enough energy to produce anti-matter. Amaxing!

(2) E = mc^2. Mass of electron is 9.11*10^-31 kilograms. Speed of light squared is 8.98755*10^16 meters^2 / second^2. 1 electron-volt = 1.6022*10^-19 kilogram * meters^2 / second^2. E = 511,000 electron-volts.

(3) 44 bolts per second. There are 31,560,000 seconds per year. Or, 1,390,000,000 lightning bolts per year.

(4) Power = 10^12 watts. Energy = Power * time. Time = 30 *10^-6 seconds.
Energy = 30,000,000 joules.
Power = current * voltage.
1,000,000,000,000 watts = 30,000 amperes * 33,000,000 volts.

( 5) 5 seconds * 1125 feet per second = 5,625 feet and there are 5,280 feet in a mile.
　
(6) Visible light covers only a small number of wavelengths compared to the electromagnetic spectrum. What we can see ranging from blue light to red light is wavelengths from 400 nanometers to 700 nanometers. New telescopes can see infrared having 10,000 nanometers and microwaves having 10,000,000 nanometer wavelengths. On the higher energy side of the spectrum astronomers can now see ultraviolet at 100, X-rays at 0.1 and Gamma Rays beginning at 0.00001 nanometer wavelengths. Gamma Rays get even smaller wavelengths at higher energies.
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