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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.
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.)
Or instead of "really well", not all in any way, shape, or form. You have no idea of the physics involved, typing words is not a physical analysis.
The galactic escape velocity for an iron atom (a typical heavy cosmic ray particle) is about 10^5 eV. All of the cosmic rays under discussion have energies greater than 10^19 eV, or 100 trillion times more energetic than the galactic escape velocity energy.
The galactic magnetic field is much better at holding on to cosmic rays, but cannot confine them above an energy of 10^18 eV or so. Which is why the researchers are studying extragalactic cosmic rays with energies above 10^19 eV. They know these cannot be confined to the Milky Way.
If hundreds of professional astrophysicists are devoting their careers to studying a problem, you can be sure that nothing you come up with off the top of your head, without knowing anything about the subject, is going to have any merit.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
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.