Scientists have discovered that during a thunderstorm, the visible lightning is linked to another "dark lightning"
Scientists have discovered that there's a lot more to thunderstorms that just thunder and the visible lightning. Satellites have discovered that along with there is a strong link between visible lightning and dark lightning during a thunderstorm. Dark lightning was first discovered in 1991 by scientists and is said to be an electrical occurrence that takes place deep within a thunderhead and produces a powerful burst of radio waves and gamma rays.
Nikolai Østgaard, a space scientist at the University of Bergen in Norway said that the study he and a group of colleagues recently conducted shows signs that both visible and dark lightning are fundamental processes in the discharge of lightning. Information gathered by two satellites shows that radio waves and gamma ray flashes from dark lightning was released just before a bolt of lightning became visible in the sky. Scientists concluded that this burst of gamma rays from dark lightning was caused due to the formation of an electric field right before the onset of bright lightning.
Østgaard said that the team had developed a new and improved search algorithm that was capable of detecting more than twice the amount of terrestrial gamma flashes originally reported. This algorithm was fitted into the two satellites which were travelling at a speed of 7 kms per second. These two satellites happened to pass right above a thunderstorm just on the onset of a dark lightning and bright lightning. That's when the satellites caught evidence of this newly discovered phenomenon.
He also revealed that the decision to make further investigations on the dark lightning phenomenon has been made and studies on the same will be carried out soon.
