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Most Powerful Cosmic Rays Come From Galaxies Far, Far Away (space.com)
A new study finds the highest-energy cosmic rays to bombard Earth come from galaxies far, far away. Space.com reports: The sun emits relatively low-energy cosmic rays. However, for more than 50 years, scientists have also detected ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, ones far beyond the capability of any particle accelerator on Earth to generate. One way to discover the origins of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays is to study their directions of travel. However, ultra-high-energy cosmic rays only rarely strike Earth's atmosphere, with one hitting any given area about the size of a soccer field about once per century, the researchers said. In order to detect ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, scientists look for the spray of electrons, photons and other particles that result when ultra-high-energy cosmic rays hit the top of Earth's atmosphere. Each of these showers contains more than 10 billion particles, which fly downward in a disk shaped like a giant plate miles wide, according to the statement. Scientists examined the sprays from ultra-high-energy cosmic rays using the largest cosmic-ray observatory yet: the Pierre Auger Observatory built in the western plains of Argentina in 2001. It consists of an array of 1,600 particle detectors deployed in a hexagonal grid over 1,160 square miles (3,000 square kilometers), an area comparable in size to Rhode Island. A connected set of telescopes is also used to see the dim fluorescent light the particles in the sprays emit at night.
The researchers analyzed data collected between 2004 and 2016. During these 12 years, the scientists detected more than 30,000 ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. If ultra-high-energy cosmic rays came from the Milky Way, one might perhaps expect them to come from all across the sky, or perhaps mostly from the direction of the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center. However, the researchers saw that ultra-high-energy cosmic rays mostly came from a broad area of sky about 90 degrees away from the direction of the Milky Way's core.
The researchers analyzed data collected between 2004 and 2016. During these 12 years, the scientists detected more than 30,000 ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. If ultra-high-energy cosmic rays came from the Milky Way, one might perhaps expect them to come from all across the sky, or perhaps mostly from the direction of the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center. However, the researchers saw that ultra-high-energy cosmic rays mostly came from a broad area of sky about 90 degrees away from the direction of the Milky Way's core.
Long long ago, far far away ... must be the tail-end of a death star beam.
Perhaps the spherical ("planetary") component of the galaxy has a large dipole magnetic field, which could cause an acceleration of charged particles which impinge upon the disc portion, thereby mimicking "intergalactic" cosmic rays.
Perhaps there is another way of looking at the data.
When dealing with astronomical observations of this type, we accept that the observations we are making could be millions or even billions of years old, based on the distance from which the phenomena originate. OK, so: old data.
We are also told by physicists that our universe started with a "big bang", a state and point in time at which the state of our universe was so energised that the sub-atomic particles we take for granted today [never mind atoms and molecules] did not exist - because the universe had not cooled sufficiently.
So if you extrapolate this facts, don't they suggest that it stands to reason that, the further away in distance [and thus the further back in time] that we look, the higher the energies we would expect to observe. Everything else is [just / subject to] entropy.
I'm not sure where Occam's Razor would swing across this story, but suspect the explanation - whatever it is - will be a simple one.
If I'm ever asked "how big is Rhode Island?", I'm going to say "it's roughly the size of the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina".
#DeleteChrome
Cave drawings.
'nough said.
Dude, you don't even know what evolution means.
Jar-Jar, for example.
That doesn't mean they came from elsewhere, it would also sync up really well with them coming from the blackhole in the center of our galaxy and being curved back inward by the gravity of the whole galaxy - sort of a galactic-scale particle accelerator. (Like the field lines of a magnet.)
Who many version is there of the bible again?
Battles between sufficiently advanced space faring races result in "weapon blink" being observed across the universe...
that would be our barely used standard issue spiritual connections... cease fire stand down.. use our conscious conscience to develop our cadence.. sing along.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-kA3UtBj4M ..freedom is a vocatioon..
Most Powerful Cosmic Rays Come From Galaxies Far, Far Away
Which also means that they come from long, long ago.
Way, way back in the 1980s as an Honors CS student I wrote some code on an old DG Nova to analyze cosmic ray bursts for the Physics Dept (Uni Adelaide). They had several detectors, hooked into a CAMAC crate, and could measure the time difference between the receptors, and thus the direction of the burst, or at least where the cosmic ray hit the atmosphere, and by also looking at distributions work out roughly which direction the original ray came from.
Some of them are charged particles and so do not travel in straight lines, which complicates it. I just did the programming, not much to do with the physics, but I would have thought this would be old news.
to help us break our greed/fear/ego based tech behemoths out of their corepirate nazi perfect balance white is right genocider mindset.. MANic is an understatement.. thanks again moms...
Human like footprints have been found that are over 6 million years old. To record history you have to be able to write.
Wikipedia tells me that extreme energy cosmic rays (>5x10e19 eV) are limited to about 160 million light years.
Trouble with astronomy is that this can be close or far depending on how you squint when you look at it :-)
Also google the oh-my-god particle which was estimated at 3x10e20 eV.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
If the most powerful cosmic rays came from our own sun, we probably wouldn't be here. DNA-based life anywhere could probably say the same.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Venus of Willendorf.
But detecting cosmic rays form far galaxies... stop smoking shit guys...
Those must be the undeveloped episodes 7-9 from George Lucas.
So if you extrapolate this facts, don't they suggest that it stands to reason that, the further away in distance [and thus the further back in time] that we look, the higher the energies we would expect to observe.
To get to the energies of cosmic rays you have to go back to before 10^-13 s after the Big Bang. Back then the Universe was incredibly small and incredibly dense. So dense and energetic that everything, even things like neutrinos, were colliding and interacting with everything around them. This meant that everything was roughly in thermal equilibrium and had comparable energies.
By the time than the charged particles responsible for cosmic rays the energy and density of the universe would have been much, much lower since it would require photons to decouple first which happened 380,000 years after the Big Bang. The result is that there is no way that a Cosmic ray, as a charged particle, can get its energy directly from the Big Bang.
It could get it indirectly if there were some high mass, exotic and as yet undiscovered particle which was created in the Big Bang and which decays with a lifetime of billions of years or which might annihilate with itself to create these particles. This is one possible way to detect Dark Matter but it is extremely unlikely (impossible without even more new physics) that this would provide enough energy to explain high energy cosmic rays.
Gravity is too weak to do this, even over long distances. The reason that nobody can detect the sources of cosmis rays is because they are easily deflected by magnetic fields and we don't have a magnetic field map of the universe to unravel this effect. Even extremely high energy rays can be deflected by weak magnetic fields due to the huge distances involved.
So for this result, I presume that they must have ruled out the possibility that these rays are being bent back towards us by the galactic magnetic field which is not unreasonable given that we know something of the galactic magnetic field and the energy of these particles.
These are much higher energy cosmic rays than those you typically detect with a couple of bits of scintillator, a few PMTs and a CAMAC crate. In addition, all you detected were the direction of one muon in the shower which the ray initiated in the atmosphere so you had very little idea of the original direction of the ray. To do that you have to reconstruct the entire shower which, for a high energy ray, is spread over a large area.
I choose to believe these are the echoes of epic battles of ancient galaxy-spanning civilizations fighting to extinction over the correct pronunciation of "GIF" and whether emacs or vi is the superior editor.
Who many version is there of the bible again?
To be fair, if the bible is wrong that wouldn't mean evolution is real. It would just mean the bible is wrong.
/ just playing devil's advocate... of course evolution is real.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
...but it's aliens.
Isn't it fairly obvious that weak cosmic rays not coming from a nearby source must actually be strong cosmic rays if they are coming from a far away source?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Of coarse ... silly people are just looking at the inter galactic worm whole corridors held open by the StarGates ;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate
http://tinyurl.com/yblxksla
Nice nic for that comment.
The fundamental* mistake is to think of the Bible as any sort of science or history. Both religious whackjobs and atheist evangelists keep repeating that mistake. That's not the kind of book the Bible is: it's not a book about "how the world is", it's a book about "how to live in the world".
Seeing the assholes and idiots on both sides (well, mostly the religious side) keep on about stuff like evolution as if it had any bearing whatsoever on the "truth" of the Bible gets really old. It's a book about psychology and social organization, and the stories therein are true or false based on whether they give good advice.
*I'm sure you see what I did there.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Why specifically the Christian version of the Bible and not any of the texts that pre-date it or any of the more recent texts? How do you know the Mormons aren't the ones who got it right, they are Christians (by their own definition) yet have a dramatically different view on history than you do.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Satan did them to confuse you and test your faith.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
First, how do the particles manage to cross millions of light years thru the slight magnetic field of intergalactic space and still retain a large part of their energy. And secondly, what process gives them that great amount of energy in the first place.
I mean, those are the cosmic rays that have had the time to build up steam, right?
Glory and Honor to Senator Binks of Naboo!
My father was a cosmic ray physicist, one of the top in the field. He even invented a cosmic ray "telescope: to view these events! It was called meson manner. :-) He also had a lab on top of Mount Evans in Colorado that did the same. I still have sympathies for the graduate students that had to spend a winder there!
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
They are probably from "nearby galaxies" based on the direction clustering. This would also imply the rays dissipate or weaken over distance, or else their source should appear roughly uniform across the sky, because "lasting" rays would otherwise be arriving from galaxies all over the universe in all directions. Although red-shifting (expansion) may also account for some distance-based weakening. Magnetic fields, ions, and dust in stuff in between could also weaken the rays over time. The cause(s) of the weakening is only speculative at this time.
Table-ized A.I.
Nice nic for that comment.
The fundamental* mistake is to think of the Bible as any sort of science or history. Both religious whackjobs and atheist evangelists keep repeating that mistake. That's not the kind of book the Bible is: it's not a book about "how the world is", it's a book about "how to live in the world".
The main problem with that is it's written for a version of "the world" that's so out of date the remaining parts that are still relevant are drowned pout by the crap that isn't. Living by it today is like insisting on applying the contents of C++ style guide from the early 90's when you're developing Android apps.
The rational thing to do with The Bible it relegate it to the self of "books we keep for historical interest but pretty much nobody ever reads or talks about".
You are reading the Bible as philosophy. It's not bad as philosophy, a bit musty in some corners, but overall pretty good advice on how to live.
The issue is that the Bible is primarily a theological text and theological explanation of the world. And for many believers, the theology cannot be separated from the philosophy. It's all-in or nothing!
For a fundamentalist the Bible is both "how the world is" and "how to live in the world".
It has nothing to do with the truth in the US.
The religious zealots do this so they can get public school systems to indoctrinate their children for them.
So 6 million years ago, humans wrote with their feet in mud flats? Sound immigration policy, if you ask me.
PlaynBass
Agreed, but it proves the fallacy of the original argument.
Agreed, I was just showing the fallacy of the Bible as an absolute document.
There's no evidence that human psychology has changed in thousands of years.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.