The Value of Thunderstorms

Thunderstorms are quickly becoming one of the most studied phenomena on the planet. Why is that? Because thunderstorms produce effects that are not only very healing to the body, but also very beneficial to science. I'll explain both. First let's talk about science. Scientists have recently discovered that a thunderstorm produces the most expensive substace known to man. No it's not platinum or plutonium. Intense thunderstorms actually produce antimatter. For those of you who didn't watch enough Star Trek, antimatter is the fuel that ran the ships of the future. Scientists are now exploring ways of capturing the antimatter that's created from intense thunderstorms.

This definitely brings a new meaning to mind for the phrase "storm chaser". I can just see groups of scientists scouring the globe in blimps trying to capture antimatter being generated and destroyed from thunderstorms. Though I doubt that it will ever happen, it's fun to imagine. At present, antimatter costs so much to create and is so difficult to store that it's completely unfeasible to use it for anything practically. I'm sure a lot of research is being done to find out if there's any way at all possible to capture the antimatter generated from a bolt of lightning. If that ever happens, I'll be more than a little impressed. But let's move on.

Thunderstorms actually also have healing properties. The whole environment is cleansed during a thunderstorm. The main reason for this is because of the different molecules that are created during a thunderstorm, including ozone and hydrogen peroxide. Because lighting is so intense and because of other factors, hydrogen peroxide, ozone, and other molecules are created, and go out into the environment, cleansing and purifying it and also promoting new growth. Did you know that hydrogen peroxide is actually quite beneficial to plants, especially young plants? So a thunderstorm not only cleanses the environment of harmful disease, it also promotes new growth. Perhaps that is the reason that the environment seems so fresh, vibrant, and crisp after a thunderstorm.

But the thing that I find most interesting is that science has actually attempted to duplicate the effects of thunderstorms in a creative way. NASA engineers used thunderstorms as the basis for developing an air purifier technology for use in their space stations. They developed an air purifier technology that utilizes hydrogen peroxide molecules and other molecules generated during a thunderstorm and attempted to magnify the effects to create an air purifier system that completely cleanses the environment of disease and other contaminents and leave the air as permanently fresh and crisp as it is after a really intense thunderstorm. I thought that that was a very cool application of science and nature. Most of the time, scientists seem to develop things that are better than the natural. Very rarely do they attempt to mimic the natural. It would make sense to me that NASA needed to develop the very best air purifier out there for use in their space stations. Up in space, air is just about the most precious commodity, and keeping it clean and fresh is definitely a priority, one would think.


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Air purifiers developed by NASA are a really intriguing technology. It's cool to think that such a scientific organization actually modeled their technology from a process found in nature. I hope they'll continue to creatively expand the field of scientific study.