Connections: Terrestrial Gamma Flashes and Lightning?

  • Released Friday, February 18, 2005
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The RHESSI instrument not only views the Sun but can detect gamma-rays from sources on Earth as well.

Movie of TGFs detected by RHESSI over a 4 month period.

Lightning probability (January 1998 - February 2003) measured by TRMM-LIS. Brighter red is higher lightning probability.

Lightning probability (January 1998 - February 2003) measured by TRMM-LIS. Brighter red is higher lightning probability.

TGFs have some correlation with lightning events?

TGFs have some correlation with lightning events?

Four months of TGFs as seen by RHESSI.

Four months of TGFs as seen by RHESSI.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Friday, February 18, 2005.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:56 PM EDT.

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Series

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Papers used in this visualization

Science, Vol 307, Issue 5712, 1085-1088 , 18 February 2005, [DOI: 10.1126/science.1107466]

Datasets used in this visualization

  • [RHESSI: X-ray Imaging Spectrometer]

    ID: 101
    Sensor: X-ray Imaging Spectrometer Dates used: 2004/07/01 - 2004/10/31

    The RHESSI instrument is an imaging spectrometer observing the Sun at X-ray to gamma-rays (photon energies of 3 keV to 17 MeV) at time resolutions of a few seconds. (eV stands for "electron volt" and is a unit of energy. Note that photons of visible light have energies of 2-3 eV. 1 keV is a thousand electron volts and 1 MeV is a million electron volts.

    This dataset can be found at: http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/hessi/

    See all pages that use this dataset

  • Lightning [TRMM: LIS]

    ID: 515
    Sensor: LIS Dates used: 2004/07/01 - 2004/10/31
    See all pages that use this dataset

  • [RHESSI]

    ID: 693
    See all pages that use this dataset

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.