NASA’s high-flying ER-2 airplane carries instrumentation in this artist’s impression of the ALOFT mission to record gamma rays (colored purple for illustration) from thunderclouds. There’s more to ...

The collision of two lightning-bolts-in-the-making spawned an exceedingly brief but extremely energetic flash of gamma rays. This first-of-its-kind observation may help explain an origin of some of ...

Light curve of the gamma-ray flare (bottom) and collection of quasi-simulated images of the M87 jet (top) at various scales obtained in radio and X-ray during the 2018 campaign. The instrument, the ...

Astronomers are trying to understand what caused a series of gamma ray bursts, or GRBs — the most powerful explosions in the universe. These energetic bursts are typically unleashed by the incendiary ...

The longest gamma-ray burst ever recorded did not behave like a quick cosmic flash. Instead, it burned across the sky for more than seven hours, forcing astronomers to rethink what powers the universe ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Thunderstorms create a lot of wind, rain, and lightning, but many ...

Above the cloud tops, thunderstorms throb with a complex, frenetic light show of high-energy radiation. A view from a retrofitted spy plane soaring at 20 kilometers up revealed storms glowing and ...

Nearly a century after astronomers first proposed dark matter to explain the strange motions of galaxies, scientists may finally be catching a glimpse of it. A University of Tokyo researcher analyzing ...

Down here at the bottom of our ocean of air, it’s easy to get complacent about the hazards our universe presents. We feel safe from the dangers of the vacuum of space, where radiation sizzles and ...