Antimatter caught streaming from thunderstorms on Earth

[muriel_volestrangler]

A space telescope has accidentally spotted thunderstorms on Earth producing beams of antimatter.

Such storms have long been known to give rise to fleeting sparks of light called terrestrial gamma-ray flashes.

But results from the Fermi telescope show they also give out streams of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons.

The surprise result was presented by researchers at the American Astronomical Society meeting in the US.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12158718

Well, of course - we all know that thunderstorms are where the USS Enterprise hides itself after yet another accidental bit of time travel back to 21st Century Earth.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. The universe is not only stranger than we know…

[xchrom]

2. Wow. Nt

[YankeyMCC]

3. The difference between a layman science geek and a real scientist

I was thinking this was interesting in what it might say about how antimatter can be produced.

The scientist quoted here is pointing out what's probably the more interesting/important lessons:

"It has some very important implications for our understanding of lightning itself. We don't really understand a lot of the detail about how lightning works. It's a little bit premature to say what the implications of this are going to be going forward, but I'm very confident this is an important piece of the puzzle."