COMETs. At https://spaceweather.com … [September 0th 2024] … astronomers are monitoring a new comet discovered just a few days ago by the ATLAS survey. It may be a naked eye comet in late October. Meanwhile, Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas will emerge from behind the Sun on October 12th. It too may also put on a bright display.
GAMMA RAYs. At https://www.sciencealert.com/overlooked-weather-phenomenon-produces-gamma-rays-in-our-atmosphere … it seems the electrical effects of a thunderstorm are not confined just to high up in the atmosphere. Close to the ground Earth’s atmosphere hums with intense electric fields that accelerate particles, flinging electrons in ways that force atoms to glow like gamma rays. At the top of a mountain in Armenia scientists have taken a look at this mysterious meteorological phenomenon. A cosmic ray facility on Mount Aragats. The electromagnetic enhancement in thunderstorms is a neglected field, we are told. But it may help us understand not just thunderstorms but it could be a piece of the puzzle in our understanding of the physical universe, from thunderstorms here on Earth to the cosmic rays that travel vast distances across space.
See also https://www.sciencenews.org/article/muons-reveal-voltages-inside-thunderstorm … Thunderstorms may store up much higher electric voltages than we thought. Using muons, heavier relatives of electrons that constantly rain down on Earth’s surface, scientists probed the insides of a storm in southern India, in 2014. The cloud’s electric potential reached 1.3 billion volts. High voltages in clouds spark lightning. If the new research is confirmed, such high voltages inside a thunderstorm could eplain a puzzling observation. Some storms send bursts of high energy light, called gamma rays, upwards – towards space.