Besides being host to stunning lightning displays, thunderclouds also emit gamma rays, although researchers aren’t completely sure why. Last fall, detectors installed on a mountaintop in Japan captured the first simultaneous observations of this radiation along with the high-speed electrons thought to be their source. The results, detailed in the 26 June Physical Review Letters, support the prevailing model of thundercloud accelerators generating “runaway” electrons, which may sometimes initiate lightning.
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