Three-dimensional views are provided by particles falling from space into swirling tropical storms.
Muons created from cosmic rays that smash into Earth’s upper atmosphere have The inner workings of cyclones revealedResearchers report October 6th in Japan Scientific Reports. Researchers say the new imaging approach could help to better understand storms. It also offers another tool that can be used to aid meteorologists in forecasting the weather.
“Cosmic rays are sustainable natural resources that can be used everywhere on this planet for 24 hours [a day],” says geophysicist Hiroyuki Tanaka of the University of Tokyo, so it’s just a matter of taking advantage of them.
Because of the way that air pressure and density affect the number particles that make it through a storm, muons can provide a glimpse into storms. Tanaka and his colleagues created rough 3-D maps of density inside storms by counting the number of muons that reached a detector at Kagoshima in Japan. This allowed the team to get a view of low-pressure regions in the center rotating storm system centers.
Muons can scatter molecules in the air, and are very similar to electrons. They’re also unstable, which means they break down into electrons and other particles called neutrinos given enough time. The density of air increases with increasing pressure. This can increase the likelihood that a muon that was born from a cosmic beam will be stopped on its way to a detector or slow enough that it is unable to make it through the atmosphere.
Tanaka and his colleagues claim that for every 1 percent increase of air pressure, the number muons that can survive passage from the upper atmosphere into the ground drops by approximately 2 percent.
Tanaka used muons from cosmic radiations in the past. look inside volcanoesHe believes that other people have used the particles for weather research (SN: 4/22/22). He said that this is the first time anyone has done 3-D muon scans inside a storm.
“It is an interesting approach,” says meteorologist Frank Marks of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, who wasn’t involved in the research.
He doesn’t expect muon imaging to replace conventional meteorological measurements, but it’s another tool that scientists could use. “[It] would be complementary to our existing techniques to provide 3-D mapping of the storms with our other traditional observing systems, like satellites and radar.”
