lightning makes X-rays ==+> see for yourself !!

Unravelling: X-rays were used to understand how lightning travels

Martin Uman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, said, “Nobody understands how lightning makes X-rays.”

“Despite reaching temperatures five times hotter than the surface of the sun, the temperature of lightning is still thousands of times too cold to account for the X-rays observed,” he said.

That said, Uman “It’s obviously happening. And we have put limits on how it’s happening and where it’s happening.”

High energy radiation

The New Mexico Tech researchers detected high-energy radiation from natural lightning. The UF/FIT’s International Center for Lightning Research Laboratory, located on a military base in Clay County, triggers lightning using wire-trailing rockets fired into passing storm clouds.

In the 2002 paper, the UF/FIT researchers confirmed that X-rays are produced by the stepped leader in natural lightning. In the latest paper, they narrowed the production of X-rays to the beginning of each step of the step leader, based on data gathered from one natural lightning strike and one triggered strike, Uman said.

Same with X-rays

“We could see when the electric field arrived at the sequence of stations, and it was the same with the X-rays,” Uman said.

“We then went back and calculated what the source location was for the field and the X-ray.”

Dwyer said the research is one more step toward using X-rays to understand how lightning travels.

Uman said the current research will continue with more expensive, faster and more sensitive X-ray detectors.