"With BOOMS, we'll take the first ever high resolution X-ray images (of microbursts)," Sample said.

The results could not only provide insights about the phenomenon but also help NASA and others predict and design for the powerful electrons that react with Earth's atmosphere to create the X-rays.

"These electrons are going so fast — about the speed of light — that they can punch through the aluminum skin of satellites and damage the satellite's computer," Sample said.

The atmosphere blocks the X-rays from reaching the Earth's surface, which is why the balloon will be used to carry the X-ray camera aloft.

Some of the first observations of the microbursts were made in the 1960s with balloons carrying X-ray cameras. But the cameras were primitive by today's standards, according to Sample.

Other observations have come from two NASA spacecraft called the Van Allen Probes, as well as from Antarctic balloon flights conducted during a 2012-2013 project called BARREL, which Sample contributed to as a graduate student. More recently, a pair of small satellites built by undergraduates in MSU's Space Science and Engineering Laboratory as part of a collaborative research project called FIREBIRD have provided the main data for scientists to estimate the microbursts' overall size.