Mysterious cosmic ray in US' Utah came from Milky Way, claim scientists
Milky Way. The particle was spotted by a cosmic ray observatory in Utah’s West Desert known as the Telescope Array and has been nicknamed as 'Amaterasu' particle after the sun goddess in Japanese mythology.
According to the journal Science, the Telescope Array, which started operating in 2008, has observed more than 30 ultra-high-energy cosmic rays but none bigger than the Amaterasu particle.
The particle had struck the atmosphere above Utah on May 27, 2021, raining secondary particles to the ground where they were picked up by the detectors.
Cosmic rays are charged particles that travel through space and constantly rain down on Earth. The low-energy cosmic rays can emanate from the sun but extremely high-energy ones are thought to travel to Earth from other galaxies and extragalactic sources.
According to John Matthews, a research professor at the University of Utah and co-author of the study said, “If you hold out your hand, one (cosmic ray) goes through the palm of your hand every second, but those are really low-energy things.
When you get out to these really high-energy (cosmic rays), it’s more like one per square kilometer per century. It’s never going through your hand".
Despite numerous years of research, the precise origins of these cosmic particles remain unknown.
These extremely high energy particles have left scientists perplexed. They are thought to be related to black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and active galactic nuclei, but the most significant discovery so far appears to have come from voids or empty space.
Glennys Farrar, a physics professor at New York University, describes these cosmic rays as having tens of millions of times more energy than any particle accelerator created by humans, like the
