mivey
Senior Member
And you thought lightning was just for creating more work for us. Fermi has detected antimatter being produced by lightning storms. There is a neat summary and video here:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/fermi-thunderstorms.html
We talk of electrons traveling slowly in our world. In this case, streams of electrons and antimatter (positrons) are being shot out into space at near light speed. The positrons collided with Fermi and produced gamma rays when the particles were annihilated by combining with electrons on Fermi. Now I guess we will have to deliver a load of electrons to make the telescope whole again.
It makes you wonder if the lightning down here is creating antimatter particles that bombard our equipment in some cases. Anyone seen any evidence of gamma radiation during a lightning damage repair?
That is just cool stuff, considering that NASA only costs us pennies per day per person.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/fermi-thunderstorms.html
We talk of electrons traveling slowly in our world. In this case, streams of electrons and antimatter (positrons) are being shot out into space at near light speed. The positrons collided with Fermi and produced gamma rays when the particles were annihilated by combining with electrons on Fermi. Now I guess we will have to deliver a load of electrons to make the telescope whole again.
It makes you wonder if the lightning down here is creating antimatter particles that bombard our equipment in some cases. Anyone seen any evidence of gamma radiation during a lightning damage repair?
That is just cool stuff, considering that NASA only costs us pennies per day per person.