Russian researchers find more evidence that lightning is caused by cosmic rays | Hacker News Reader

Russian researchers find more evidence that lightning is caused by cosmic rays

phys.org

45 pointscwan10 comments

I read this a few days ago on Reddit. The first thing I thought about was the Catatumbo lightning storm. There is constant lightning every single day or so in Venezuela. Then I reread the wiki page and there is a mention of a high uranium concentration in the area so it might be a source of gamma rays, but I really doubt it is sufficient to generate that much lightning, or such a phenomenon would be much more common.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatumbo_lightning

Well if this article is talking about what I think it's talking about, we deal with something in radiation detection called "gas amplification" which occurs in the presence of a large electric potential.

If they're saying that an incoming cosmic ray causes a ionization effect in what's literally a "cloud chamber", which gas amplifies into what we see as lightning it would actually make perfect sense to me.

Given that the Catatumbo effects occur more than 5km in the air (where cosmic ray flux would be higher) the only other thing you'd need would be to ensure that the electric potential is continually re-established as the lightning dissipates it. Maybe that can be explained by the weather and geography in the area?

Since the earth rotates quite fast, I wonder what could be the source of such a constant and localized gamma ray radiation? The source would have to "track" the region for up to 10 hours, or given the circumference of the earth, around 17 000kms. Or maybe the constant radiation from space is enough and the region particularities make it happen.

There is no way that a gamma ray source tracks us, more likely there is a lighter-than-air gas such as ethane, methane, etc. (which are used in spark chambers) escaping that lake, or somthging else to that effect, making conditions suitable for ionization.

I did not know about Catatumbo, thanks for posting. Very interesting.

The atmosphere as a kind of spark chamber? http://www.hep.phy.cam.ac.uk/~lester/teaching/SparkChamber/S...

This could be really cool, if we can figure out how to cheaply create this type of reaction and harness the energy released.

The energy comes from the Sun's heat through the massive water vapor movement in the atmosphere creating the highly charged clouds. The cosmic rays just trigger the release of this potentials. So, at the end of the day, just doing solar power is more efficient.

More like may seed some lightning.

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