Antimatter from Thunderstorms

Antimatter from thunderstorms caught on telescope 6 hours ago by Katie Naylor A space telescope has made an accidental discovery of antimatter being produced on earth by thunderstorms. It has been known for quite some ... Discountvouchers.co.uk - 86 related articles What's in a thunderstorm? Antimatter, for one - Los Angeles Times NSBNEWS.net - 31 related articles

quote below from MSNBC news article

 

Earth's thunderstorms hurl antimatter into space

Never-before-seen phenomenon observed with NASA telescope

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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

This NASA illustration is a still from an animation depicting how thunderstorms on Earth can create beams of antimatter particles and hurl them into space.

By Mike Wall

LiveScience

updated 1/11/2011 1:51:44 PM ET 2011-01-11T18:51:44

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SEATTLE — Powerful thunderstorms on Earth can fling beams of antimatter into space, a new study finds.

Scientists picked up on the never-before-seen phenomenon by peering at thunderstorms with NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The antimatter particles were likely created by what scientists call a terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF), a brief burst of gamma rays produced inside thunderstorms and known to be associated with lightning, researchers said.
"These signals are the first direct evidence that thunderstorms make antimatter particle beams," study lead author Michael Briggs, of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, said in a statement. Briggs presented his team's results Jan. 10 at the 217th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle.end quote from MSNBC article.

This sort of finding is sort of like saying: "Oh by the way cows sometimes fly!" because it is just so 'out of sync' with what people previously thought. But it also demonstrates what I have always experienced in life which is: "Truth is ALWAYS much stranger than Fiction".

Begin quote from wikipedia under the heading "positron"

Positron (antielectron)
Cloud chamber photograph by C.D. Anderson of the first positron ever identified. A 6 mm lead plate separates the upper half of the chamber from the lower half. The positron must have come from below since the upper track is bent more strongly in the magnetic field indicating a lower energy.
Composition:	Elementary particle
Particle statistics:	Fermionic
Group:	Lepton
Generation:	First
Interaction:	Gravity, Electromagnetic, Weak
Symbol(s):	β+, e+
Antiparticle:	Electron
Theorized:	Paul Dirac (1928)
Discovered:	Carl D. Anderson (1932)
Mass:	9.10938215(45)×10−31 kg[1] 5.4857990943(23)×10−4 u[1] [1822.88850204(77)]−1 u[note 1] 0.510998910(13) MeV/c2[1]
Electric charge:	+1 e 1.602176487(40)×10−19 C[1]
Spin:	1⁄2

The positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. The positron has an electric charge of +1e, a spin of ¹⁄₂, and the same mass as an electron. When a low-energy positron collides with a low-energy electron, annihilation occurs, resulting in the production of two or more gamma ray photons (see electron-positron annihilation).
Positrons may be generated by positron emission radioactive decay (through weak interactions), or by pair production from a sufficiently energetic photon. end quote from wikipedia under heading "positron"

So then if a positron is an anti electron then that is what thunderstorms produce which for some reason then head out into space. It sounds like creating an artificial thunderstorm possibly with a giant Tesla Coil located around the south or north pole might create "Positrons" more cheaply for scientists to more easily study in the future. Understanding "Positrons" through closer real contact with them might open up new secrets and technologies for Earth.

Note: The reason one would do this in a remote place is that the amount of charge necessary to create positrons would zap local electrical appliances, cell reception, radio reception, and TV and other 2 way radio reception etc. So, in order to not create "electrical damage" like thunderstorms often do when there aren't lightning rods. So,  a remote place to do this would be the best.