B.M. Kuzhevsky of Moscow State University and his colleagues claim that all the conditions necessary for a thermonuclear reaction are fulfilled during a lightning strike. First nuclei with a large quantity of neutrons (e.g. deuterium) are available, for example, deuterium nuclei. Second, these nuclei should possess sufficiently high velocity to merge upon collision by overcoming the electrostatic Coulomb barrier.
Kuzhevsky, who heads the neutron research laboratory, Skobeltsin Scientific Research Institute of Nuclear Physics at MSU has calculated how these conditions are fulfilled to come to this rather shocking conclusion.
Deuterium is, he says, always present in water. On average, one molecule of DHO occurs in 6800 molecules of H2O. Taking into account the quantity of water vapor available in the atmosphere (i.e. 5x10^-4 g/cc, there will be 10^15 deuterium atoms per cc. In a lightning strike, these atoms are ionized and are capable of reach very high speeds. A lightning channel varies in diameter from 2 to 50 millimetres, and a discharge lasts ten thousandths of a second, this suggests billions of deuterium atoms could react with each other and generate precisely two times fewer atoms of helium-3 and neutrons. These neutrons possess enormous energy - 2.45 MeV, says Kuzhevsky.
These neutrons exist for just 0.2 seconds in our atmosphere, during which they will inevitably meet with nitrogen atoms and be absorbed. However, this is sufficient time for neutrons to fly a distance of one or two kilometres.
The calculations have now been confirmed by experimental data. The DYAIZA facility developed at the Institute and installed in Moscow at the Vorobyevy Hills repeatedly recorded neutron emission peaks during thunderstorms, their magnitude exceeding that of the background by hundreds of times.
The research could help solve a long-standing puzzle: why cosmonauts on board the MIR space station observed high neutron background above the equator. Thunderstorms are common along the equator, so are the suggested source of this high neutron flux.
Secondly, the same mechanism might also apply in the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter where thunderstorms are also frequent. The researchers suggest that investigation of these planets' overal neutron emissions should take into account the lightning strike effect.
SOURCE: InformNauka. Re-written by David Bradley
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