11 Jan 2011:? Scientist of the Fermi gamma-ray space telescope have NASA beams antimatter produced about thunderstorms on Earth, a phenomenon as never before discovered.
Scientists believe that the antimatter particles within lightning associated with thunderstorms in a terrestrial gamma-ray Flash (TGF) were formed. It is estimated that about 500 TGFs daily occur worldwide, but most undiscovered.
"These signals are first evidence that thunderstorms make antimatter particle beams," said Michael Briggs, Member of the Fermi gamma-ray burst monitor (GBM) team at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). He presented the findings Monday during a news briefing at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle.
Fermi gamma-rays, highest form of energy of light to be listening. When antimatter striking conflicts Fermi with a particle of normal matter, both particles are immediately destroyed and transformed gamma radiation. The GBM gamma rays with energies of 511,000 electron volt detected a signal indicating an electron counterpart antimatter, a positron fulfilled.
Although Fermi's GBM was designed to observe high energy events in the universe, it provides valuable insight into this strange phenomenon. The GBM constantly monitors the entire celestial heavens and the Earth below. The GBM team has identified 130 TGFs since Fermi's launch in 2008.
"In Orbit for less than three years, which is the Fermi mission to examine an amazing tool to the universe." "Now we learn that it can detect much, much closer to the home to secrets", said Ilana Harrus, Fermi program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington.
The ship was immediately above a storm for the most storms were the observed TGFs in four cases but far from Fermi. Additionally, lightning generated signals detected the Flash was only at the time specified by a global monitoring network hundreds or more miles away. During a TGF 14 took place Dec. 2009 Fermi is located in Egypt. But the active storm was about 2,800 kilometres in the South in Zambia. The remote storm below Fermi's horizon, so that all the gamma rays, which produced could it not have been detected.
"Although Fermi could not see the storm, the ship still magnetic, was connected," said Joseph Dwyer at the Florida Institute of technology in Melbourne, Florida "The TGF produces high speed electrons and positrons, which then rode strike of the spacecraft to Earth's magnetic field."
The bar past to Fermi, a location known as mirror, where his movement was undone, and press the probe a second time just 23 milliseconds later achieved. Each time, collided Positron in the beam of electrons in the probe. The particles destroyed, output of gamma rays discovered by Fermi's GBM.
Scientists long have suspected that TGFs caused by the strong electric fields close to the peaks of the thunderstorm. Under the right conditions, they say, the field is strong enough that it up avalanche of electrons is one. Reach speeds of almost as fast as light, the high-energy electron gamma rays give when they are distracted by air molecules. Usually, these gamma rays are detected as a TGF.
But the cascading electrons produce clearly enough gamma radiation that they blow up electrons and positrons from the atmosphere. This happens when the gamma ray energy into a couple of particles: an electron and a positron. It is these particles that reach orbit Fermi.
The detection of positrons shows that many high energy particles from the atmosphere will be launched. In fact, scientists now believe that all TGFs of electrons/positrons emit beams. A paper on the findings was accepted for publication in geophysical research letters.
"The results of the Fermi us take a step closer to the understanding of the functioning of TGFs,", said Steven Cummer at Duke University. "We have still to find out what is so special about these storms and the Flash is exact role in this process."
Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
Fermi home by NASA
Are TGFs for passengers? ---Science@NASA
Firefly mission to study terrestrial gamma-ray Blitze--(Science@NASA)
What comes from above a thunderstorm? --(Science@NASA)
NASA's Fermi gamma-ray space telescope is a partnership between the particle physics and Astrophysics. It is administered by Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA in Greenbelt, MD. It was developed in cooperation with the U.S. Department of energy, with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.
The GBM instrument operations center is located at the national space science technology center in Huntsville, Ala. The team consists of a collaboration of scientists from UAH, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany and other institutions.
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