Citizen Science Observation of a Gamma‐Ray Glow Associated With the Initiation of a Lightning Flash

Abstract

Strong electric fields inside thunderclouds accelerate electrons up to relativistic energy and cause several types of high-energy atmospheric phenomena. One example is terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) coinciding with lightning discharges (

Citizen science "Thundercloud Project" -- multi-point radiation measurements of gamma-ray glows from accelerated electrons in thunderstorms

“…Here we report this growing citizen science project and examples of successful gamma-ray glow observations. Our first scientific result from this citizen science project was published in Tsurumi et al, GRL 2023 [1], where we reported lightning discharges started in or near the electron acceleration site of a gamma-ray glow.…”

“…Some data are remotely sent to the web server so researchers and citizen supporters can watch the realtime monitoring data. When a gamma-ray glow is detected with the count rate exceeding the predetermined threshold, an automatic alert in the server is sent to the public on Twitter [1].…”

Cancer Risk Assessment Concern Regarding the Publication “Assessing the Risk of Secondary Cancer Induction in Radiosensitive Organs During Trigeminal Neuralgia Treatment With Gamma Knife Radiosurgery: Impact of Extracranial Dose”: A Letter to the Editor

“…The illogicalness of LNT theory for cancer induction is revealed by the fact that even though we humans reside in a sea of natural background ionizing radiation, we have not perished from Earth, but remain in large numbers. We are exposed to gamma-ray photons (related to cosmic rays 5 and thunderstorms 6 ) and other natural background radiation throughout our lives, including photons with energies 5 > 10 GeV. Unfortunately, some influential epidemiologists still rely on LNT models for cancer risk assessment.…”