Join CNN’s Marvel Principle science publication. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
CNN
—
House scientists looking for to know the enigmatic origins of highly effective cosmic rays have detected a particularly uncommon, ultra-high-energy particle that they consider traveled to Earth from past the Milky Means galaxy.
The vitality of this subatomic particle, invisible to the bare eye, is equal to dropping a brick in your toe from waist top, in line with the authors of new research revealed Thursday within the journal Science. It rivals the only most energetic cosmic ray ever noticed, the “Oh-My-God” particle that was detected in 1991, the examine discovered.
Cosmic rays are charged particles that journey by house and rain down on Earth continually. Low-energy cosmic rays can emanate from the solar, however extraordinarily high-energy ones are distinctive. They’re thought to journey to Earth from different galaxies and extragalactic sources.
“If you happen to maintain out your hand, one (cosmic ray) goes by the palm of your hand each second, however these are actually low-energy issues,” stated examine coauthor John Matthews, a analysis professor on the College of Utah.
“Whenever you get out to those actually high-energy (cosmic rays), it’s extra like one per sq. kilometer per century. It’s by no means going by your hand.”
Regardless of years of analysis, the precise origins of those high-energy particles nonetheless aren’t clear. They’re considered associated to essentially the most energetic phenomena within the universe, equivalent to these involving black holes, gamma-ray bursts and energetic galactic nuclei, however the greatest found thus far seem to originate from voids or empty house — the place no violent celestial occasions have taken place.
The lately found particle, nicknamed the Amaterasu particle after the solar goddess in Japanese mythology, was noticed by a cosmic ray observatory in Utah’s West Desert often known as the Telescope Array.
The Telescope Array, which began working in 2008, is made up of 507 ping-pong table-size floor detectors protecting 700 sq. kilometers (270 sq. miles).
It has noticed greater than 30 ultra-high-energy cosmic rays however none larger than the Amaterasu particle, which struck the environment above Utah on Could 27, 2021, raining secondary particles to the bottom the place they have been picked up by the detectors, in line with the examine.
“You possibly can look …(at) what number of particles hit every detector and that tells you what the vitality of the first cosmic ray was,” Matthews stated.
The occasion triggered 23 of the floor detectors, with a calculated vitality of about 244 exa-electron volts. The “Oh My God particle” detected greater than 30 years in the past was 320 exa-electron volts.
For reference, 1 exa-electron volt equals 1 billion gigaelectron-volts, and 1 gigaelectron volt is 1 billion electron volts. That will make the Amaterasu particle 244,000,000,000,000,000,000 electron volts. By comparability, the everyday vitality of an electron within the polar aurora is 40,000 electron volts, according to NASA.
An ultra-high-energy cosmic ray carries tens of thousands and thousands of occasions extra vitality than any human-made particle accelerator such because the Large Hadron Collider, essentially the most highly effective accelerator ever constructed, defined Glennys Farrar, a professor of physics at New York College.
“What’s required is a area of very excessive magnetic fields — like a super-sized LHC, however pure. And the circumstances required are actually distinctive, so the sources are very very uncommon, and the particles are dissipated into the huge universe, so the probabilities of one hitting Earth are tiny,” stated Farrar, who wasn’t concerned within the examine, by way of e-mail.
The environment largely protects people from any dangerous results from the particles, although cosmic rays sometimes cause computer glitches. The particles, and house radiation extra broadly, pose a larger danger to astronauts, with the potential to trigger structural harm to DNA and altering many mobile processes, according to NASA,.
The supply of those ultra-high-energy particles baffles scientists.
Matthews, a co-spokesman for the Telescope Array Collaboration, stated the 2 greatest recorded cosmic rays appeared “kind of random” — when their trajectories are traced again, there seems to be nothing high-energy sufficient to supply such particles. The Amaterasu particle, particularly, appeared to originate from what’s often known as the Native Void, an empty space of house bordering the Milky Means galaxy.
“If you happen to take the 2 highest-energy occasions — the one which we simply discovered, the ‘Oh-My-God’ particle — these don’t even appear to level to something. It needs to be one thing comparatively shut. Astronomers with seen telescopes can’t see something actually massive and actually violent,” Matthews stated.
“It comes from a area that appears like a neighborhood empty house. It’s a void. So what the heck’s occurring?”
An enlargement to the Telescope Array could present some solutions. As soon as accomplished, 500 new detectors will enable the Telescope Array to seize cosmic ray-induced particle showers throughout 2,900 sq. kilometers (about 1,120 sq. miles) — an space practically the scale of Rhode Island, in line with the College of Utah assertion.