Space scientists seeking to understand the enigmatic origins of powerful cosmic rays have detected an extremely rare, ultra-high-energy particle that they believe traveled to Earth from beyond the Milky Way galaxy. <\/p>\n
The energy of this subatomic particle, invisible to the naked eye, is equivalent to dropping a brick on your toe from waist height, according to the authors of new research published Thursday in the journal Science. It rivals the single most energetic cosmic ray ever observed, the \u201cOh-My-God\u201d particle that was detected in 1991, the study found. <\/p>\n
Cosmic rays are charged particles that travel through space and rain down on Earth constantly. Low-energy cosmic rays can emanate from the sun, but extremely high-energy ones are exceptional. They are thought to travel to Earth from other galaxies and extragalactic sources. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you hold out your hand, one (cosmic ray) goes through the palm of your hand every second, but those are really low-energy things,\u201d said study coauthor John Matthews, a research professor at the University of Utah. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you get out to these really high-energy (cosmic rays), it\u2019s more like one per square kilometer per century. It\u2019s never going through your hand.\u201d <\/p>\n
Despite years of research, the exact origins of these high-energy particles still aren\u2019t clear. They are thought to be related to the most energetic phenomena in the universe, such as those involving black holes, gamma-ray bursts and active galactic nuclei, but the biggest discovered so far appear to originate from voids or empty space \u2014 where no violent celestial events have taken place. <\/p>\n
The recently discovered particle, nicknamed the Amaterasu particle after the sun goddess in Japanese mythology, was spotted by a cosmic ray observatory in Utah\u2019s West Desert known as the Telescope Array. <\/p>\n
The Telescope Array, which started operating in 2008, is made up of 507 ping-pong table-size surface detectors covering 700 square kilometers (270 square miles).
It has observed more than 30 ultra-high-energy cosmic rays but none bigger than the Amaterasu particle, which struck the atmosphere above Utah on May 27, 2021, raining secondary particles to the ground where they were picked up by the detectors, according to the study. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can look \u2026(at) how many particles hit each detector and that tells you what the energy of the primary cosmic ray was,\u201d Matthews said. <\/p>\n
The event triggered 23 of the surface detectors, with a calculated energy of about 244 exa-electron volts. The \u201cOh My God particle\u201d detected more than 30 years ago was 320 exa-electron volts. <\/p>\n
For reference, 1 exa-electron volt equals 1 billion gigaelectron-volts, and 1 gigaelectron volt is 1 billion electron volts. That would make the Amaterasu particle 244,000,000,000,000,000,000 electron volts. By comparison, the typical energy of an electron in the polar aurora is 40,000 electron volts, according to NASA. <\/p>\n
An ultra-high-energy cosmic ray carries tens of millions of times more energy than any human-made particle accelerator such as the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful accelerator ever built, explained Glennys Farrar, a professor of physics at New York University. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is required is a region of very high magnetic fields \u2014 like a super-sized LHC, but natural. And the conditions required are really exceptional, so the sources are very very rare, and the particles are dissipated into the vast universe, so the chances of one hitting Earth are tiny,\u201d said Farrar, who wasn\u2019t involved in the study, via email. <\/p>\n
The atmosphere largely protects humans from any harmful effects from the particles, though cosmic rays sometimes cause computer glitches. The particles, and space radiation more broadly, <\/strong>pose a greater risk to astronauts, with the potential to cause structural damage to DNA and altering many cellular processes, according to NASA,. <\/p>\n The source of these ultra-high-energy particles baffles scientists. <\/p>\n Matthews, a co-spokesman for the Telescope Array Collaboration, said the two biggest recorded cosmic rays appeared \u201csort of random\u201d \u2014 when their trajectories are traced back, there appears to be nothing high-energy enough to produce such particles. The Amaterasu particle, specifically, seemed to originate from what\u2019s known as the Local Void, an empty area of space bordering the Milky Way galaxy. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you take the two highest-energy events \u2014 the one that we just found, the \u2018Oh-My-God\u2019 particle \u2014 those don\u2019t even seem to point to anything. It should be something relatively close. Astronomers with visible telescopes can\u2019t see anything really big and really violent,\u201d Matthews said. <\/strong> <\/p>\n \u201cIt comes from a region that looks like a local empty space. It\u2019s a void. So what the heck\u2019s going on?\u201d <\/p>\n An expansion to the Telescope Array may provide some answers. Once completed, 500 new detectors will allow the Telescope Array to capture cosmic ray-induced particle showers across 2,900 square kilometers (about 1,120 square miles) \u2014 an area nearly the size of Rhode Island, according to the University of Utah statement. <\/p>\n\n Space scientists seeking to understand the enigmatic origins of powerful cosmic rays have detected an extremely rare, ultra-high-energy particle that they believe traveled to Earth from beyond the Milky Way galaxy. The energy of this subatomic particle, invisible to the naked eye, is equivalent to dropping a brick on your toe from waist height, according <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Mysterious source<\/h3>\n