Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms • Hacker News Board

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#91

Post by rsynnott » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 4:42 PM UTC

liversage wrote: post #45

cperciva wrote: post #2

Positively charged particles end up at the top of the storm while negatively charged particles drop to the bottom, creating an enormous electric field that can be as strong as 100 million AA batteries stacked end-to-end. Or put another way, 150 MV. What's with this media obsession with using obscure non-SI units?

In my neck of the woods it's called "journalist units": three soccer fields, five blue whales etc. Somebody even created a website to facilitate conversion but unfortunately the TLS certificate has expired and Cloudflare now blocks access. Article in Danish: https://ing.dk/artikel/lynch-nu-kan-ogsaa-journalister-faa-s...

The Register also have one: https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-conver...

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#92

Post by mrguyorama » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 4:44 PM UTC

bguebert wrote: post #62

houseplant wrote: post #44

the phenomenon of "red sprites", massive discharges of electricity upwards into the ionosphere that counter every single lightning strike, are only now being observed and photographed. these energy ejections are SO powerful, they temporarily cause miniature aurora displays for a split second, by ionizing the same layer of the atmosphere where they appear. it's amazing to see photos of it.

Here's an article with some pictures in case anyone else was curious about red sprites like I was. https://earthsky.org/earth/definition-what-are-lightning-spr...

The wikipedia page actually has some incredible images as well, including several from space that show their scale and position in the atmosphere (high up)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(lightning)

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#93

Post by dylan604 » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 4:49 PM UTC

garrettgarcia wrote: post #21

Andrew Hall has hypothesized that plasma flow has a large part to play in thunderstorm formation and tornados. These surprising gamma rays mentioned in the article would seem to support Hall's hypothesis. Hall's theories are well outside of the mainstream and I don't know his credentials, if any, and cannot speak to his hypothesis's veracity. I'm not a scientist. Would any actual scientists care to comment? Here is a…

From the linked video, "while their search for green tinted lights continue..."

Such a non-chalantly delivered diss. I found the lowering of ground strike lightning during the tornado interesting.

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#94

Post by nozzlegear » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 4:49 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #78

sneak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody outside of the industry knows how much a megavolt is. Megavolts are actually the obscure unit, for normal people.

Most people don't even really understand "million" and "billion" other than as "a lot".

They certainly understand that billion is "a lot" more than million.

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#95

Post by bguebert » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 4:58 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #79

bguebert wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an article with some pictures in case anyone else was curious about red sprites like I was. https://earthsky.org/earth/definition-what-are-lightning-spr...

that shot with them aligned with Milky Way is spectacular

yeah, its pretty cool how most of these photos they were trying to take a picture of something else and the red sprites just happened to be in the right place because of a storm front moving in.

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#96

Post by abc_lisper » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 5:15 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #85

This somehow reminds me of the fact that you can produce (surprisingly high-quality) x-rays by unrolling scotch tape in a vacuum chamber[0][1]. I wonder if it turns out to be related in any way. Thunderstorms aren't a vacuum of course, but I dunno, maybe all that frozen hail being thrown around can bumping into each other still involves a similar underlying mechanism somewhere. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/nat…

It was suprising to me when I heard it. How could we not know it would happen before hand? Doubt explanation of it needs new laws of physics, item is common place and yet we were all caught off-guard. Wonder who different other planets even in our own solar system are, even if we know all the laws of physics and chemistry that guide those reactions; never mind planets in other solar systems

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#97

Post by SAI_Peregrinus » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 5:28 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #23

madars wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But familiarity gets more remote as you need larger and larger (or, smaller and smaller) multipliers. It's far more illustrative to say "the volume of a typical gas tank" than "the internal volume of hundred million poppy seeds", even though the volumes are in the same ballpark. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(voltage) says that high voltage substations are in 100 kV range and 25.5MV i…

They need to write for an (average) 6th grade reading level - maximum. So think 4th grade most of the time. How many 4th graders have any clue what a mega volt is? How many do you think have personal experience with 150 mega volts?

How many have experience with AA batteries these days? How many with 100 million of anything, enough to get an idea of how much bigger that is than one of the thing? Probably all about the same numbers.

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#98

Post by westurner » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 5:32 PM UTC

idunnoman1222 wrote: post #82

westurner wrote: post #80

Does this help to explain the genetic diversity of the tropical latitudes; is the genetic mutation rate higher in the presence of gamma radiation? So many of our plants and flowers (here in North America) originate from rainforests and tropical latitudes, but survive at current temps for northern latitudes.

No, insignificant Is diverse because there is more biomass

/? is the genetic mutation rate higher in the presence of gamma radiation: https://www.google.com/search?q=is%20the%20genetic%20mutatio... :

- "Frequency and Spectrum of Mutations Induced by Gamma Rays Revealed by Phenotype Screening and Whole-Genome Re-Sequencing in Arabidopsis thaliana" (2022) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8775868/ :

> Gamma rays have been widely used as a physical agent for mutation creation in plants, and their mutagenic effect has attracted extensive attention. However, few studies are available on the comprehensive mutation profile at both the large-scale phenotype mutation screening and whole-genome mutation scanning.

- "Bedrock radioactivity influences the rate and spectrum of mutation" (2020) https://elifesciences.org/articles/56830

- "Comparison of mutation spectra induced by gamma-rays and carbon ion beams" (2024) https://academic.oup.com/jrr/article/65/4/491/7701037 :

> These results suggest that carbon ion beams produce complex DNA damage, and gamma-rays are prone to single oxidative base damage, such as 8-oxoguanine. Carbon ion beams can also introduce oxidative base damage, and the damage species is 5-hydroxycytosine. This was consistent with our previous results of DNA damage caused by heavy ion beams. We confirmed the causal DNA damage by mass spectrometry for these mutations.

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#99

Post by jajko » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 6:18 PM UTC

nickpsecurity wrote: post #84

cperciva wrote: post #2

Positively charged particles end up at the top of the storm while negatively charged particles drop to the bottom, creating an enormous electric field that can be as strong as 100 million AA batteries stacked end-to-end. Or put another way, 150 MV. What's with this media obsession with using obscure non-SI units?

One form is stating hey, scientific fact that the audience may or may not understand. The other form uses language the audience understands specifically to build up their knowledge. Reducing their confusion also helps them enjoy the article. So, the journalist are optimizing their writing style For the majority of people to understand and enjoy the writing. That’s probably the best way to write.

Yes, but that's only because societies basically gave up on trying to get better in such ways and laid back very deep in their 'comfort zone' for the lack of better words, laziness and fear of challenge may be another. You know, the place where ossification happens, be it in individuals or in millions.

Sweden switched to right hand driving in 1967, I don't think if they postponed it till today they would still dare (not bashing swedes in any way, happy to be wrong here). Now that's a brave move, and everybody gained from it. Imagine US switching say to left hand side if whole world would be driving like that... nope.

It doesn't matter if metric (of Celzius based on freakin' H2O states for fucks sake) system is vastly simpler, especially the less intelligent/educated one is (since we have 10 fingers in our face 24/7 and we learn counting on them), ego is too big, thus you guys measure in washing machines, football fields etc. You guys even fail to realize that whole US population would benefit, scientists don't care they will use whatever suits them and they are smart enough to not be slowed down by units used or their conversion.

Nice summary via great Nate Bargatze in this SNL sketch [1]. Its fun to make fun of but its also sad, because it really is pure ego game, nothing more and those are always childish and immature at their core, throttling the potential for greatness in hard to measure ways.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqfVE-fykk

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#100

Post by trhway » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 6:37 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #56

trhway wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while the field is strong, the actual energy seems to be not much - a lightning bolt is few billions of Joules, i.e. about 1000 KW/h (100kg gasoline).

Well, 100kg of gas along with a similar ammount of oxygen. Even then, burning through 100kg of gasoline in the few microseconds of a lighting bolt would probably be more powerful than any non-nuclear bomb ever dropped.

Lightning takes tens of microseconds, bomb - couple hundred microseconds, so about 10 times difference power-wise.