What Lightning And Black Holes Have In Common

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

Lightning: It happens all the time, and yet the exact details of how it's made has long eluded scientists. That is, until now. New research out this week in the journal Nature holds new insights into the precursor to lightning. To figure it out, researchers flew a NASA ER-2 – essentially the research version of a spy plane – over several tropical thunderstorms. What they found: The same high energy radiation is found in places like neutron stars and around black holes.

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