Beware of the Dark Lightning
I’ve known abou the randomness of gamma-ray burst for quite some time. They have been stymying researchers for decades. Most of the more powerful ones seem to come from the outside of our Solar System, even our Galaxy. However, there seems to be another kind of gamma-ray burst, one that comes from much closer to home. Researchers are now providing a solid theoretical evidence about how such bursts might appear in the Earth’s atmosphere during thunderstorms. Some of these burst release as much radiation as do 10 – 100 full chest X-ray exams, depending on how close to the thunderstorms you might be. Thankfully, most flights avoid such close encounters with thunderstorms to begin with, so we are (relatively) safe flying in the sky.
What I would find interesting would be if these thunderstorms could be mined for traces of exotic and rare particles. As the experimental particle Physics seems to be approaching the end of its capabilities, it would be good if someone could come up with novel and less-expensive ways of studying the laws of subatomic nature. We are still far from having even this latest hypothesis about “dark” lightning confirmed, but these are the kinds of ideas worth pondering.
About the Author
Bojan Tunguz
Bojan Tunguz was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which he and his family fled during the civil war for the neighboring Croatia. Over the past two decades he has studied, lived and worked in the United States. He is a theoretical physicist with degrees from Stanford and University of Illinois. Tunguz has taught physics at several prominent liberal arts colleges and has been writing about physics, science and technology for more than a decade. He also has a wide spectrum of interests, and reads and writes about current events, society, culture, religion and politics. Over the years he has reviewed many of the books that he has read, and posted his reviews on various online outlets. In 2011 he had become a top 10 reviewer on Amazon.com, where he continues to be very active. Aside from reading and writing, Tunguz enjoys traveling, digital photography, hiking, and fitness. He resides with his wife in Indiana. You can follow my review updates on the following pages as well: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tunguzreview Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tunguzreviews Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104312842297641697463/posts
There are no comments yet, add one below.