Cosmic rays are subatomic particles from deep space that are constantly bombarding the Earth's atmosphere. Scientific American editor Phil Yam explains how they might play a role in seeding bolts of lightning.

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3 Comments

1. 1. Sevvy1 09:20 AM 6/23/12

   I recall seeing satellite or shuttle based video of apparently coordinated lightning strikes at thousands of miles distance- this would appear to suggest a mechanism.

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2. 2. TreeLuvBurdpu 10:06 AM 6/23/12

   If you're interested, Sevvy1, there was also a Discovery Channel program on something they called sprites. Sprites are events that some researches noticed when doing extremely high-speed video of lightening. The sprites occur high above the lightening and immediately before the lightening. I don't recall how they tied that in to cosmic rays, but there was some possible link indicated.
   
   

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3. 3. jtdwyer 10:31 AM 5/27/13

   Here some interesting recent research news:
   
   http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/05/do-cosmic-rays-grease-lightning.html
   
   http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/04/scienceshot-solving-the-mystery-.html

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