Terrestrial Gamma Ray Bursts Very Common

Rambo Tribble writes It was long thought that gamma ray bursts were the exclusive province of deep space sources. More recently it was found that storms could produce such emissions, but such occurrences were thought rare. Now, data from NASA's Fermi satellite suggest such events happen over a thousand times a day. Per Prof. Joseph Dwyer, from the University of New Hampshire, "These are big, monster bursts of gamma rays, and one would think these must be monster storms producing them. But that's not the case. Even boring-looking, garden-variety, little storms can produce these."

Comments

More important: how is this happening?

[erice]

Unfortunately, TFA doesn't suggest the question. Gamma bursts were not expected on Earth because they are created by nuclear interactions. Common for stars and other cosmic objects but not expected in thunderstorms. The source could be electrical, which means they are technically x-rays but at a higher energy then thought possible. Alternatively, there is significant nuclear fusion going on in those storms.