L ightning strikes are something to fear. Around 2,000 people are killed by them each year, and aside from causing many more injuries, lightning has the power to destroy objects too. But there’s a type of lightning you wouldn’t want to encounter. Called superbolts, they don’t happen all that often, “yet they’re 1,000 times more powerful than typical lightning,” says Jean-Francois Ripoll, senior scientist at the Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique (CEA) in Paris. “Superbolts are also potentially very destructive.” But their cause and nature remain unknown decades after being discovered.
First reported in 1977, they were originally observed after the US Department of Defense developed Project Vela in 1963, a program that sought to find ways of monitoring nuclear explosions on or around Earth as the Cold War went on. By sending four satellites into orbit, the US was able to keep an eye on activity and ensure the Soviets were sticking to the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty. But the array of instruments on board those satellites, which included X-ray, neutron and gamma-ray detectors, also greatly aided science. Not only did Project Vela make one of the biggest space discoveries when it detected gamma-ray bursts, it also picked up on bright and energetic blasts. “They were genuinely brighter than most other
