{"id":88691,"date":"2019-03-15T15:02:44","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/indian-scientists-measure-1-3-billion-volt-thunderstorm-the-strongest-on-record"},"modified":"2019-03-15T15:02:44","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:02:44","slug":"indian-scientists-measure-1-3-billion-volt-thunderstorm-the-strongest-on-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/indian-scientists-measure-1-3-billion-volt-thunderstorm-the-strongest-on-record","title":{"rendered":"Indian Scientists Measure 1.3-Billion-Volt Thunderstorm, the Strongest on Record"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/indian-scientists-measure-1-3-billion-volt-thunderstorm-the-strongest-on-record2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientists in India observed the highest-voltage thunderstorm ever documented with the help of a subatomic particle you might not hear much about: the muon.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers operate the GRAPES-3 telescope, which measures muons, particles that are similar to electrons but heavier. Specifically, the Gamma Ray Astronomy at PeV EnergieS Phase-3 (GRAPES-3) muon telescope measures high-energy particles from outer space called cosmic rays. It typically picks up 2.5 million muons each minute, mapped on a 13-by-13 grid across the sky. But during thunderstorms, it experiences quick changes to the amount of muons it receives. The GRAPES-3 researchers added electric field monitors to the experiment, and devised a way to turn these muon fluctuations into measurements of the voltage of passing storms.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/indian-scientists-measure-1-3-billion-volt-thunderstorm-1833328768\">https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/indian-scientists-measure-1&#45;3-billio...1833328768<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists in India observed the highest-voltage thunderstorm ever documented with the help of a subatomic particle you might not hear much about: the muon. The researchers operate the GRAPES-3 telescope, which measures muons, particles that are similar to electrons but heavier. Specifically, the Gamma Ray Astronomy at PeV EnergieS Phase-3 (GRAPES-3) muon telescope measures high-energy [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[493,48,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climatology","category-particle-physics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}