Lightning is one of the most unpredictable phenomena in nature. It regularly kills people and animals and sets fire to homes and forests. It keeps aircraft grounded and damages power lines, wind turbines and solar-panel installations. ...
Environment
Nov 8, 2019
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445
Anybody who has ever tried to photograph lightning knows that it takes patience and special camera equipment. Now, a new study is using those brief but brilliant flashes to illuminate cloud structures and shed light on storm ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 13, 2019
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30
The lightning season in the Southeastern U.S. is almost finished for this year, but the peak season for the most powerful strokes of lightning won't begin until November, according to a newly published global survey of these ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 9, 2019
3
114
University of Tokyo graduate student Yuuki Wada with colleagues from Japan have discovered a connection between lightning strikes and two kinds of gamma-ray phenomena in thunderclouds. The research suggests that in certain ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 25, 2019
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1
Did ancient supernovae induce proto-humans to walk on two legs, eventually resulting in homo sapiens with hands free to build cathedrals, design rockets and snap iPhone selfies?
Earth Sciences
May 28, 2019
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1129
In contrast to popular belief, lightning often does strike twice, but the reason why a lightning channel is 'reused' has remained a mystery. Now, an international research team led by the University of Groningen has used ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 17, 2019
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66
In a first-of-its-kind observation, researchers from the University of New Hampshire Space Science Center have documented a unique event that occurs in clouds before a lightning flash happens. Their observation, called "fast ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 10, 2019
19
335
No one has a firm grasp on the dimensions and activity of the lowest part of our upper atmosphere, known as the ionospheric D region, because it's literally a moving target. Located 40 to 60 miles above the Earth's surface, ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 5, 2019
0
160
NASA's efforts to better understand asteroid impacts has found unexpected support from a new satellite sensor designed to detect lightning. New research published in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science finds that ...
Space Exploration
Aug 1, 2018
13
60
In the western Utah desert, the Telescope Array sprawls across an area the size of New York City, waiting for cosmic rays. The facility detects the high-energy particles that collide with Earth's atmosphere constantly; the ...
Astronomy
May 17, 2018
14
281
