Posted on 12/05/2023 2:30:04 PM PST by MtnClimber
Explanation: It was one of the most energetic particles ever known to strike the Earth -- but where did it come from? Dubbed Amaterasu after the Shinto sun goddess, this particle, as do all cosmic rays that strike the Earth's atmosphere, caused an air shower of electrons, protons, and other elementary particles to spray down onto the Earth below. In the featured illustration, a cosmic ray air shower is pictured striking the Telescope Array in Utah, USA, which recorded the Amaterasu event in 2021 May. Cosmic ray air showers are common enough that you likely have been in a particle spray yourself, although you likely wouldn't have noticed. The origin of this energetic particle, likely the nucleus of an atom, remains a mystery in two ways. First, it is not known how any single particle or atomic nucleus can practically acquire so much energy, and second, attempts to trace the particle back to where it originated did not indicate any likely potential source.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
Cool.
I haven’t seen anything like that before.
224 Eev = 2.24 X 10 ^ 20 electron volts . That is about the energy of a fast baseball. All that in a single particle near the size of an atomic nucleus.
I think one of those hit me in the head.
Neat stuff. I didn’t know there was anything like that in Utah.
Cosmic rays are always the reason something goes wrong.
-Car doesn’t start at first, but you try again and it does...
-Brief static in the middle of your favorite show/song on whatever device you’re using...
-Lights flicker in the house for a sec...
-Forget that one, most important, item from the grocery store...
Me too.
It was after a long night with a bottle of cheap tequila
Elm Street
I don’t know much about this stuff. I was just making the point that nobody would see this with the eye - the image was caught by highly specialized equipment.
If you actually want to see particle radiation a super saturated cloud chamber is the way to go!
I saw the ‘illustration’ note, but no further explanation.
I just assumed that the image was some kind of rendering of how what the instruments detected WOULD look, if we could see it.
Actually made one many years ago. It did work.
Another way to “sort of” see them was back when we had cathode ray tv screens. You could dim the screen almost all the way down and whatever little bits of static you saw were cosmic rays or some other particle.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.