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- Cosmic rays are electrons, protons, and other ionized atomic nuclei striking Earth's upper atmosphere at nearly the speed of light, 186, 000 miles per second.
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-. Where are these cosmic rays coming from?
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-. Light and all electromagnetic radiation travels in a straight line. Cosmic rays are charged particles. As they pass through magnetic fields they spiral and you cannot tell what direction they are coming from.
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-. Magnetic fields permeate our solar system, our galaxy, and the entire universe. There is no escaping them.
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-. The energies of the cosmic rays spans 12 orders of magnitude, that is, 12 multiplications of 10.
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-. Cosmic rays originating in the Sun have low energies, 10^8 electron volts. In contrast, iron nuclei cosmic rays can have energies of 10^20 electron volts.
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-. The higher the energy the less often we see them. Low-energy cosmic rays bombard every square inch of Earth every second. Most of them come from our Sun. The highest energy cosmic rays hit one square mile of Earth once a century.
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-. When cosmic rays are hitting Earth it is occurring most often in the upper atmosphere. A particle traveling at nearly light speed, 186,000 miles per second, collides with a gas molecule causing a cascade of secondary particles that shower down to the Earth’s surface.
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-. The term cosmic rays was first used in 1932. It was confused with radioactivity and gamma rays. Although science learned later that cosmic rays were particles and not rays, electromagnetic radiation, the name stuck.
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-. It was not until last year 2013 that the source of these high-energy particles was determined to be supernovae explosions.
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- Cosmic rays can take tens of millions of years traveling at near light speed's in their magnetically twisted paths as they travel through the galaxy to Earth. That is 10,000,000 years versus 100,000 years if they were traveling in a straight line.
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-. Interesting new discoveries have found that the elements lithium, beryllium, and boron nuclei are 100,000 times more abundant in cosmic rays that in our natural solar system. It is believed that these lighter elements were created from collisions between heavier elements during their journey here.
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-. Cosmic rays with energies of 10^17 electron volts and above are likely extra galactic cosmic rays, from outside the Milky Way. These may be created by intergalactic or galactic Blackholes.
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-. Science is particularly interested in cosmic rays to learn how these enormous energies can be created? What is the source and how does it work? The energies are 10,000,000 times greater than what scientists can produce in particle accelerators, like the Large Hadron Collider in CERN, Switzerland.
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-. Also because, cosmic ray bombardments have changed Earth's history and the history of evolution on the planet. Cosmic rays ionize the atmosphere creating lightning and cloud formations. Cosmic rays can cause genetic mutations in DNA changing the course of biology. Cosmic rays are dangerous in space where the Earth's magnetic field and the thick atmosphere are not there to protect space travelers. The safety of space travel will be a serious challenge due to this danger.
-. The good news, we still have a lot to learn. An announcement will make shortly, stay tuned
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