Lightning triggers nuclear reactions during the storm

Japanese researchers found evidence that triggered nuclear reactions in the air.

In a study published yesterday in Nature, physicist Teruaki Enoto at Kyoto University, Japan, proves that it acts as a natural particle accelerator to spark airborne nuclear reactions. , according to Live Science.

The research results of Enoto and colleagues helped confirm the speculation about this phenomenon that was introduced in 1925. At that time, the researchers hypothesized that radioactive particles carrying energy could glide through the thunder of the storm. thunderstorms. These particles emit energy at a particular wavelength. Enoto's team first identified those wavelengths.

Lightning strikes produce antiparticles, leading to a natural nuclear reaction.(Artwork: Vasin Lee).

When lightning strikes, the flow of electrons emits at super-fast velocity between the cloud and the Earth's surface or between two clouds, but they do not move through empty space. Along the way, they constantly collide with gas molecules in the atmosphere. This collision causes the gas molecules to heat up, turning into a state of plasma and glowing with blackbody radiation , a type of electromagnetic radiation emitted by opaque objects.

People could see part of that blinding light in the form of lightning. But emission also takes place in the form of waves, including X-rays and gamma rays, in addition to the naked eye's ability to observe.

Enoto's research shows these invisible energy-carrying rays, especially gamma rays, knocking off neutrons from nitrogen molecules and oxygen in the surrounding air, creating a nuclear fission reaction. The nucleus of nitrogen with 14 neutrons is quite stable, but when a neutron is lost, it becomes nitrogen 13 (N-13), a less stable radioactive isotope. The same thing happens with oxygen, leading to the release of oxygen isotope 15 (O-15).

All molecules N-13 and O-15 decay quickly afterwards. Each less stable isotope shoots an additional neutrino and positron. Both are elementary particles with strange properties. Neutrino particles emitted far away are almost undetectable. But positron particles, antiparticles of electrons, continue to collide with electrons in the air. When a pair of particles and antiparticles collide, they are annihilated in a flash.

In the study, Enoto and colleagues used radiation detectors installed at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station in Niigata, along Japanese waters. During a thunderstorm in February of this year, the team discovered strong radiation from offshore lightning strikes, including a gamma ray that flashed briefly, accompanied by a longer gamma ray of 0.511 megaelectron volts ( MeV). This is the usual energy level from positrons and electrons after a nuclear reaction.

"This gamma ray is a definitive proof of the positron-electron annihilation, which helps to show that nuclear photonuclear reactions can be triggered by thunderstorms , " says physicist Leonid Babich at the Federal Nuclear Center Russia, comment on research results.