Electrons in mysterious cosmic rays point to an unexpected source (photo)

The CALET space telescope, installed on the exterior of the International Space Station, has been observing cosmic rays for 8 years. During this time, he recovered more than 7 million pieces that make up these mysterious rays that pierce the universe. The authors of the study, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, used the collected data to find the source of cosmic rays detected in orbit. ScienceAlert writes that at least one source has been found near Earth.

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The existence of very high energy cosmic rays has been known for more than 100 years. But scientists are still searching for its origins. Cosmic rays consist of protons and electrons as well as atomic nuclei, but the latter are much smaller. These cosmic ray particles move through space at almost the speed of light and have much more energy than these particles should have.

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So far, scientists believe that the most likely source of cosmic rays is supernova remnants, where particles are accelerated to very high speeds and fly into space. But there are probably other sources. For example, cosmic rays can arise from the annihilation of dark matter particles; This is why scientists are so eager to understand its nature.

Cosmic rays are difficult to detect on Earth because their particles collide with atoms and molecules in the atmosphere, creating what is called a particle shower. But these are no longer cosmic rays. Therefore, using the CALET telescope, scientists can directly detect the highest energy cosmic rays.

The authors of the study say they were able to detect cosmic rays with energies up to 4.8 teraelectronvolts. It turns out that the higher the energy of the rays, the less the number of particles they contain. Scientists have also discovered cosmic rays with energies of up to 7.5 teraelectronvolts, allowing us to gain a new understanding of their nature.

However, at such a high energy level, the number of particles in cosmic rays did not decrease. That is, scientists have concluded that the more energy of cosmic rays, on the contrary, the number of particles increases.

Although it is not exactly known where cosmic rays come to us, it is still known that they lose energy during long journeys. So the further away the source is, the less energy there will be. If the energy of cosmic rays is very high, this means that the radiation source is not too far from the Earth.

The authors of the study believe that the supernova remnants are relatively close to our planet by cosmic standards. Data from studies of some cosmic rays overlap with observational data on these objects. So the reason for this may lie in the fact that this radiation is actually coming from supernova remnants.

Scientists say that by examining the electrons in some cosmic rays, they have revealed that this radiation has an energy of more than 10 teraelectronvolts. And this is a very high number. Therefore, the source of these rays is very close. The new observations should provide more information because if this hypothesis turns out to be true, then it will appear that scientists have finally solved a long-standing mystery. Or at least some of this mystery about mysterious cosmic rays.

As I already wrote FocusAstronomers have discovered a very unusual type of cosmic explosion that releases large amounts of energy. However, other events occurred after the explosion, showing that dead stars can sometimes “come to life” in a different form.