This clearly shows that Lord Asrael should have more funding to get another expedition ready, to study the Dust.

poor antimatter...you never get any love. First you all but disappear then when you finally get borned that oppresive muthafuckin matter is always there to put you back in your place...:( sad face for antimatter

Actually, this is very intriguing news, because it means there's a natural occurring source for positrons (the antimatter equivalent of an electron) right here on earth. Previously, antimatter was thought to be an extremely rare substance, since most of it is immediately annihilated when it comes into contact with ordinary matter, and it's very difficult to create under laboratory conditions.

Now, where's my warp drive?

Well, actually, this stuff is annihilated almost immediately also. It doesn't stuck around for long.

Shooped, I can tell from some of the pixels.

More evidence of the Plasma Cosmology

http://thunderbolts.info

@4:

True, but knowing it's being created locally and thus being able to study more closely the mechanisms of production may provide experimental physicists some new avenues for creating it in the laboratory, where it can be stored.

Yes, very cool image. I wonder what kind of camera was used on the satellite.

So can I have my Star Trek warp speed space ship now.

COMTE @ 3 -- Positrons are emitted routinely by garden-variety radionuclides in beta(+) decay. (If curious, look up PET Scans.)

Poor things don't survive long enough to stoke a starship, though.

First the smallest exoplanet discovered, then this? Mmmm good day to be a geek.

@9:

But are they emitted in measurably large quantities? That's what I find exciting about this discovery, since it appears the thunderstorms generated a fairly substantial number of positrons, at least more than enough to set Fermi's gamma-ray detector off on numerous occasions, which I'm guessing (incorrectly perhaps) wouldn't have been the case if it had been sitting next to a PET scanner?

My memory on the issue is incredibly fuzzy but I seem to recall that a thunderstorm has more energy than an atomic bomb.