Lightning – Chapter 2

In July 1962, US Army detonated a 1.5 megaton nuclear warhead 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean. The explosion takes place in an area of natural radiation called the Van Allen Belts. Wrapped around the earth like two giant donuts, they’re full of deadly radioactive particles – and a threat to astronauts and satellites.

It's a very hazardous area because these particles are moving so fast they'll move through skin, through flesh, tissues, also through spacecraft, damaging delicate circuits and eventually leading to satellites that will no longer function in Space.

Between the belts is an area with much less radiation – called the safe slot. Its home to commercial satellites, operating in the safety of its low radiation environment. But the warhead sends a massive dose of radiation straight into the safe slot. Radiation levels soar. Satellites cease to function. But then, just a few weeks later the slot is free of radiation. Nasa scientists are stunned. Something has created the safe slot. What?

Soon there’s a breakthrough. Researchers realise violent solar storms pump radioactive particles into space. When these head in our direction, radiation saturates the safe slot. Then, as if by magic, it clears, and the slot becomes safe again. But not all at once. And that’s the vital clue. Whatever clears the safe slot seems to be more effective at some times than others. It’s more intense on the day side than it is on the night side and it’s more intense during the summer than it is in the winter.

But how could lightning on earth affect the safe slot – 4000 miles up?

A lightning bolt tears through the air. It doesn’t just produce light, and sound, it also creates radio waves. Turn on your radio when there’s a storm nearby, and you can hear them as interference. But tune in with an all frequencies receiver, and you can pick up more than just crackle. This eerie whistling is the sound of those radio waves after they’ve travelled through space.

In 2005, a group of researchers come up with a radical new theory. Less than a second after a lightning strike on earth, the radio wave reaches the radiation belts. There it interacts with the electrically charged particles – the radiation. It forces the particles out of the safe slot. The radiation is cleared and the safe slot returns to normal.

If they are right, without lightning, radiation would soon fill the safe slot. Satellites would go down – taking out many things we’ve come to rely on. Global communications, navigation systems, cell phones, satellite television – all could shut down. Life as we know it would grind to a halt.

So, now I realize if lightning stopped tomorrow, we would see a dramatic change in the way we live today. It’s probably one of those fundamental parts of the equation that really contribute to life on Earth…and this evidently shows why God created lightning, and this is why we have to hold firm our believe in God, that whatever things He’s created, there must be significant reasons behind it.

Don Corleone.