Antarctic Experiment Finds Puzzling Distribution of Cosmic Rays

pitchpipe writes "A puzzling pattern in the cosmic rays bombarding Earth from space has been discovered by an experiment buried deep under the ice of Antarctica. ... It turns out these particles are not arriving uniformly from all directions. The new study detected an overabundance of cosmic rays coming from one part of the sky, and a lack of cosmic rays coming from another." The map of this uneven distribution comes from the IceCube neutrino observatory last mentioned several days ago.

Comments

Really?

[smallfries]

Scientists have called this part of the sky "The Sun".

Huzzah!

[Daetrin]

It would be great if they'd actually found the center of the universe, in contradiction to all previous theories, since that would allow a hole in relativity that you might be able to squeeze FTL through. At least as far as i understand it some methods of FTL would be non-paradoxical if there was actually a universal reference frame instead of everything being, well, relative.

Unfortunately i'm sure there's a much more mundane explanation for the phenomenon which they will eventually discover.

Re:Huzzah!

[mangu]

At least as far as I understand it some methods of FTL would be non-paradoxical if there was actually a universal reference frame instead of everything being, well, relative.

This universal reference exists and is known by scientists, google for cosmic microwave dipole.

Our galaxy is moving at 627 km/s in relation to the microwave background radiation of the universe, which is the nearest direct effect of the Big Bang that we can observe.

Re:Huzzah!

[RichardJenkins]

The centre of my universe is a couple of feet lower.

Re:Huzzah!

[mangu]

you plot every xyz coordinate of every piece of matter in the universe. you will end up with a shape, no matter how odd it looks (donut, blob, square, pyramid, who cares). that shape has a center, which is the average of all xyz coordinates.

This would be true only if the universe had an euclidean geometry.

This is hard to visualize in three dimensions, so let's start with a two-dimensional case. Imagine a perfectly flat horizontal surface. Any triangle you draw in that surface will have three internal angles that add up to 180 degrees. If you draw any finite number of points there you could take the average of the xy coordinates and define a "center" for that set of points.

Now imagine a curved surface, let's say the surface of the earth. Define a triangle like this: point A is at zero latitude, zero longitude. Point B is at zero latitude, 90 degrees West longitude. Point C is at the North Pole. This triangle has three angles of ninety degrees, adding up to 270 degrees.

How would you define a "center" for a set of points randomly distributed over the surface of the earth? You could do it only if those points were sufficiently close together so the surface between them could be approximated by a flat surface. You can talk about the center of a continent, but the center of the whole surface of the earth is undefined.

Imagine the same problem in a universe with three dimensions that's curved in a fourth dimension and you will understand a bit of what general relativity is all about.

Here's a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

God went that-a-way

Not ordinary Cosmic Rays

[photogchris]

Oh, I know what is going on. With all the earthquakes, floods, oil well leaks and explosions, global warming. Those aren't any ordinary cosmic rays, they are Mongo Rays! Lord Ming has it in for us. Where is Flash and Dr. Zarkov when we need them?

Re:Scientists:

[xerxesVII]

Look around you.

Look... around you.

Look... around you. ...

How DO scientists sift through this data? They insert the assembled facts into a wave function graphing device.

Note that down in your copybook.

The device is powered by 2 icktoms of intelligent calcium and a green anole.

(addressing anole, paper lab jacket is visibly taped to the lizard's back) Hello, Professor!

When the functions display a wave on the screen of the osomoscope, the scientists interpret the signal. How do the scientists interpret it?

We may never know. Scientists have very intelligent brains, and it can be quite a challenge to even guess what they want for lunch. ... ...back next time when we learn about wood.

I propose

[Sabz5150]

We call this the "Microwave oven theory". Some areas get cooked to carbon, others are left frozen solid.

crap article

[tenco]

Doesn't even contain a link to the project in question.

Re:Is it the Earths magnetic field?

[John Hasler]

> I mean, it is what protects us from vasts amounts of cosmic rays...

No it isn't. The Earth's magnetic field has negligible effect on cosmic rays: they are far to energetic for it to influence them significantly. What protects us from cosmic rays is the atmosphere.

> ...maybe those differences account for a vast majority of this patterns?

The physicists will have already taken the small (but known) effect of the magnetic field into account.

> And the various celestial bodies that surround us (constantly deflecting
> this rays) account for the rest?

Celestial bodies do not surround us. The sun and the moon together cover less than 1/100,000th of the sky.

Re:Scientists:

[EdZ]

Look Around You.
Look. Around. You.
Have you guessed what we're looking for, yet? Yes, that's right - it's computer programming.
[ MAN SITTING AT TYPEWRITER ]
This man is writing a computer programme. A computer programme is like a script that tells a computer what to do. Like people, computers understand different languages - some examples of computer languages are:
* C
* PASCAL
* BASIC
* C double-plus
* C triple-plus
* C detuned bassoon
* Norwegian

Your school computer is probably a BBC Microcomputerisation Engine and, therefore, understands a dialect of BASIC known as 'HyperFrench.'
Make a note of this in your copybook... now.

Re:Interplanetary Magnietic Field Lines?

[John Hasler]

The Earth's magnetic field is well mapped. The physicists will already have taken it into consideration.

Re:Is it the Earths magnetic field?

[Penguinshit]

It makes me sad that you had to explain that here.

Re:Is it the Earths magnetic field?

[jfengel]

I'm happy that it was phrased in the form of a question. Too often, the reaction to a bit of science that somebody doesn't wish to believe is simply rejection of it, perhaps combined with unsourced assertions (or assertions to un-peer-reviewed sources).

You don't have to know everything in science. There's too much to know. Ignorance is fine, as long as you're (a) aware of it, (b) curious, and (c) not going to fight against those who do know it.

Re:Did they discover any mountains too?

[Artifakt]

R'lyeh is in the south pacific. Pnakoticos is in the Australian desert. Irem is in Saudia Arabia. Unfortunately, the Pentagonally Symmetrical Elder Things named their last surface city 'Can'ned'spham', which is why the Shoggoths ate them.

Re:Is it the Earths magnetic field?

[khallow]

No it isn't. The Earth's magnetic field has negligible effect on cosmic rays: they are far to energetic for it to influence them significantly. What protects us from cosmic rays is the atmosphere.

This is incorrect. The International Space Station has a significantly lower cosmic radiation environment due to the Earth's magnetic field. However, the cosmic rays that are energetic enough to be detected under a few hundred meters of ice can easily punch through the Earth's magnetic field.

Celestial bodies do not surround us. The sun and the moon together cover less than 1/100,000th of the sky.

Indeed. The heliosphere might, due to its vast size (and its shock interaction with the galactic medium is apparently a known source of cosmic rays), be an intermediate filter with enough pull to distort the path of incoming cosmic rays.

Re:Is it the Earths magnetic field?

[TapeCutter]

The sun and the moon together cover less than 1/100,000th of the sky.

Really? so you are saying the universe is flat, and the earth is off in a corner where nothing but the sun and moon are around it?

Is the sky flat where you live?

"and no matter which direction we go, we are going to hit some "celestial" body."

Nope, space is pretty much just space. Galaxies commonly collide with each other but the stars within those collisions very rarely smash into each other. It's not that there is any shortage of celestial bodies it's just that space is really, really, big.

There's also the fact that ALL of the celestial bodies are contained within the microwave background, so why is it that we can see the microwave background if every direction is obscured with a celestial body?