Category Archives: News and Updates

News about Astronomy and Space Science. Find every news item and update here, in blog format. You can get these updates sent straight to your mailbox by subscribing here, or you can subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking the link.

Anti-matter storms detected in Earth’s atmosphere

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NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope, which discovered mysterious Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes about a year ago, has discovered beams of anti-matter arcing through the Earth’s atmosphere.  The anti-matter particles are created high above ordinary storm clouds by bolts of lightning. Recent studies of lightning, using high-speed cameras, have revealed a whole world of activity in the upper atmosphere that nobody ever suspected.  Phenomena such as Blue Jets, Elves and Sprites are all associated with lightning and dance in the upper atmosphere … Continue reading →

Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes

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Recent studies of lightning, using high-speed cameras, have revealed a whole world of activity in the upper atmosphere that nobody ever suspected.  Phenomena such as Blue Jets, Elves and Sprites are all associated with lightning and dance in the upper atmosphere above thunderstorms to altitudes as high as a hundred kilometers!  Now, an orbiting observatory built to observe GRB’s (Gamma-ray Bursts — some of the most intensely powerful explosions in the universe which blast out radiation at X Ray and … Continue reading →

Fermi Space Telescope watches thunderstorms on Earth

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Several years ago, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope discovered Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes (TGF’s), mysterious burst of high-energy gamma radiation emanating from the Earth’s upper atmosphere.  Later observations by Fermi revealed that the TGF’s are caused by streams of anti-matter annihilating atoms of regular matter in the upper atmosphere, and that these anti-matter particles are created high above ordinary storm clouds by bolts of lightning.    Fermi is a space telescope, similar to Hubble, but can only see in the gamma … Continue reading →

SALT in all it’s time-lapsed glory

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Timelapse From Inside SALT The South African Large Telescope (SALT) is the largest single optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, and one of the largest in the world.  It is located in Sutherland, South Africa, and is modelled on the design of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) in Texas.  This design has a spherical primary mirror which is fixed in position, with the secondary mirror mounted on a gantry and moving overhead, to aim at different targets.  Dr. Bruno Letarte attached a camera … Continue reading →