Where the hell did the antimatter number from ? That ’s what atmospheric scientist Joseph Dwyer has been trying to figure out for the past six years , after hisresearch plane accidentally flew through a thunderstorm into a cloud of antimatterin 2009 .
Dwyer ’s airplane was equip to detect atmospherical gamma - rays ( or γ - rays ) , gamey - energy photons that can be triggered by cosmic rays collide into the atmosphere or by acute lightning storms . Here ’s what happened on that tempestuous daytime in 2009 , asrecounted by Nature :
It was to study such atmospheric γ - light beam that Dwyer , then at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne , outfit a subatomic particle sensor on a Gulfstream V , a type of super acid plane typically used by line executive . On 31 December 2024 , the pilot turned towards what looked , from its radar profile , to be the Georgia coast . “ Instead , it was a line of electrical storm — and we were flying decently through it , ” Dwyer say . The carpenter’s plane roll violently back and forth and plunged all of a sudden downwards . “ I really thought I was going to die . ”
But Dwyer survive and his particle detector ended up detecting three 511 - kiloelectronvolt gamma - beam of light spikes . Here ’s another thing you should cognize about gamma - ray : They can also be the result of an electron clash with its antiparticle , a positron . Particles of issue and antiparticles of antimatter have the same good deal but opposite properties such as charge , and they instantly eradicate when their counterparts clash , turning into things like da Gamma - rays . As our universe is made of subject , the presence of antimatter is unremarkably fleeting .
And the 511 kiloelectronvolt gamma - ray spikes were a smoke gun for negatron - positron annihilation . A few more calculations chair Dwyer to the conclusion that the plane was surrounded by a small cloud of positron .
But where did these positrons , the antimatter , amount from ? Intense thunderstorms can indeed produce positrons , but other data from this storm lead the scientist to govern that explanation out . Same with cosmic beam of light , which should have caused other types of radiation to show up in the data .
Dwyer terminate up bring out his termination after fail to come up an explanation . ButNature reportshe is now plan to mail balloon and even another plane into a thunderstorm to collect more data and get to the bottom of the mystical antimatter .
[ Nature ]
Top image : cephotoclub / shutterstock
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