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Large Storms On Earth Are Particle Accelerators
MondoMor writes "Apparently, the atmosphere above Earth's strongest storms acts like a particle accelerator, according to a UC Santa Cruz paper. TGFs (Terrestrial Gamma ray Flashes) may occur as seldom as 50 times a day, 'but the rate could be up to 100 times higher if, as some models indicate, TGFs are emitted as narrowly focused beams that would only be detected when the satellite is directly in their path.' I'm glad the gamma-ray bursts are directed into space."
These gamma ray bursts are also known as red sprites, blue jets, and super lightning.
http://images.google.com/images?q=red%20sprites
Gamma Rays from storms
You don't need a magnetic field to have a particle accelerator. An electric field is sufficient. Particle accelerators simply accelerate charged particles. You are looking at one (if you have a CRT).
The energy of the particles involved here are not particularly impressive....from a particle physics research point of view anyway. They are VERY impressive in that no natural mechanism before now has been known (on earth) to produce particle energies this high though. They are speculating that the accelerated electrons involved here are in the ~30 MeV range which is a commonly available energy range easily attained by even small medical e- accelerators (the therac 20 accidents happened with a beam of 20MeV electrons for instance) and the range is not that far above common natural beta decay energies(perhaps an order of magnitude). If you want to get to scientifically interesting energy levels these days (for particle physics research) you have to be at least in the high GeV range and for cutting edge research (the large hadron collider etc.) you need to be in the TeV range (trillion electron volts. When they say "good enough for the theorists to really test their models" they're not talking about the standard model of particle physics, they're talking about the models of particle acceleration in thunderstorms, I suspect.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
30 MeV is impressive for a terrestrial thunderstorm, but much faster and more energetic particles and photons arrive from space. One proton (dubbed the "Oh-My-God" particle by the goofy physicists who observed it) was seen striking the upper atmosphere above Utah with a calculated energy of 320000000 TeV or 51 Joules, the energy of a 55 mph baseball.