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--------------------------- 2739 - COSMIC RAYS - new discoveries?
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- The lightest were discovered first: The Leptons: the electron and the electron neutrino. The Quarks: The Down Quark and the Up Quark. Two Up Quarks and a Down Quark make up a proton and Two Down Quarks and an Up Quark make up a neutron.
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- The next heavier family of Leptons and Quarks are Muons: Muon Neutrino and Strange Quark and Charm Quark. The Muon is a heavy electron and it decays into an electron very rapidly. When studying Cosmic Rays scientists discovered the positron (the anti-particle electron), the Muon, and the Pion.
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- The third still heavier family of Leptons and Quarks are Taus: Tau Neutrino, Bottom Quark, and Top Quark.
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- These twelve Leptons and Quarks are all held together by four Force Carriers called: W Boson, Z Boson, Gluon, and Photon. The photon is most familiar because it is the force carrier for the electromagnetic force which carries the electricity, magnetism, and light that we use every day.
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- Cosmic Rays, mostly protons, fill the galaxy with energy at a level equivalent to that of starlight. But, we don’t understand Cosmic Rays very well. When they crash into Earth’s upper atmosphere they smash into gas nuclei and create a whole myriad of fundamental particles that rain down onto the Earth’s surface.
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- Cosmic rays are hitting us at a rate of about one particle per square centimeter per second. 90% of the cosmic rays are protons, which are hydrogen nuclei ions. The rest are heavier nuclei, electrons and Gamma Rays.
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- When the Cosmic Ray hits an atom in the atmosphere it creates a shower of secondary particles called Pi-mesons. The neutral Pi-mesons, or pions decay into pairs of Gamma Rays which in turn may create electrons and positrons. The charged pions decay into muons and muon neutrinos.
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- Scientists have to get above the atmosphere in order to study these Cosmic Rays directly. But, they can study their affects by studying these secondary particles that rain down on to Earth’s surface.
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- When the Cosmic Rays first arrive in the upper atmosphere they can be carrying energies from 100,000,000 electron volts to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 electron volts. These energy levels vastly exceed any thing we can produce in our biggest particle accelerators here on Earth.
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- These high energy cosmic ray particles are “ions“, or charged particles, which means they go in circles when they enter a magnetic field. Even the Milky Way Galaxy’s magnetic field which is 100,000 times weaker than Earth’s will cause the Cosmic Ray to travel in random directions. Consequently, we can not identify where they came from. Unlike light that mostly travels in a straight line and can point to its source, Cosmic Rays do not point to where they came from.
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- Only about 1% of incoming cosmic rays are Gamma Rays but they have one big advantage. Magnetic Fields do not alter the trajectories of Gamma Rays. So, scientists tracking Gamma Rays should be able to trace their path back to their source.
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- Scientists have traced 1,000,000,000 electron volt photons that look like they came from several supernova remnants in our galaxy. In the process Scientists discovered a new astronomical object called a Gamma-Ray Blazer.
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- Blazers are emitted by active galactic nuclei sending out photons beyond the 1,000,000,000 electron volt level. These Blazers are hundred million lightyears away and they still outshine supernova that have occurred in our own galaxy. So, far astronomers have found 65 of these Gamma-Ray Blazers.
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- Scientists can measure the total energy of Cosmic Rays and it amounts to about 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 megawatts. This is a billion times more powerful that our Sun. The only source in the galaxy that we know of that can create this much power is a supernova. A few supernova explosions every 100 years would provide enough power to generate the galaxy’s cosmic rays.
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- The Cosmic Ray spectrum versus energy level is very unusual. Tracing the energy levels from 10^9 eV to 10^18 eV we can identify two bends in the curve. It is believed that the lower energies emanate from supernova remnants in our own galaxy. The first bend at 10^15 eV are possible from some other galactic source. The second bend in the curve at 10^18 eV is possible from some extragalactic source.
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- When a particle exceeds the speed of light in a medium, not a vacuum because nothing can go faster than light in a vacuum, a medium such as water, the particle can exceed the light barrier.
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- Sort of like exceeding the sound barrier, a shockwave is produced and a blue light is seen. Scientists call this blue light “Cerenkov Radiation”. This is one of the methods used to detect Cosmic Ray particles that reach Earth’s surface. It is now a whole new science called “particle astrophysics“.
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- These inter and extra-galactic particles are going through our bodies all the time. We need to learn so much. How much do they affect the weather? What is their exact nature and origin? How much have they affected evolution here on Earth?
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- Are they an essential element to allow life to occur on planets? Can Cosmic Rays tell us more about the Standard Model of fundamental particles that comprise all of Nature? Or, maybe how the Universe began? This stuff is exotic research.
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-------------------------------- See other reviews about cosmic rays:
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- 2729 - COSMIC RAYS - to explain an expanding Universe? Could the Universe have expanded faster than the speed of light? The Universe appears to be “homogeneous” and “isotropic“ , the same in all directions. If light really was faster in the beginning then that could explain it. One way to test this theory is to study cosmic rays.
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- 2305 - Cosmic Rays are not rays at all, they are particles, sub-atomic particles, traveling through space at nearly the speed of light. Look at your thumbnail. Now imagine that 200 cosmic ray particles traveled through your thumb nail every second. Thousands of these ‘rays” zipping through your body and through the entire Earth.
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- 1927 - Cosmic Rays, are they a curse or are they a blessing? See Review 1926 about Cosmic Rays and Planetesimals. This review continues the discussion about Cosmic Rays.
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- 1926 - To learn how Cosmic Rays may be responsible for the evolution of life on Earth.
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- 1747 - Compares Cosmic Rays and Gamma Rays. Adding up the power of Cosmic Rays leads to 10^29 megawatts, or billion times the power of the Sun’s output. This review footnotes 11 other Reviews about Cosmic Rays.
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- 1659 - Cosmic Rays can take tens of million so years traveling at near light speeds in their magnetically twisted spiral paths to reach Earth.
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- 1624 - Most Cosmic Rays pass through Earth without touching anything. How powerful are Cosmic Rays? How often do they reach Earth? What new discoveries have discovered the source of the high energy Cosmic Rays?
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- 1568 - Cosmic Rays hit air molecules and create a shower of billions of electrons, muons, positrons, pions, etc.
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- 1496 - 90% of Cosmic Rays reaching Earth’s surface are protons. About 10 of them pass through your thumb every minute.
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- 1377 - Astronauts experience much higher bombardment of Cosmic Rays 5,000 hit their body every second.
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- 810 - an average body absorbs enough Cosmic Ray energy to equate to 2 chest X-rays per year.
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- 709 - the risks of space travel.
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- 386 - Gamma Rays and Cosmic Rays
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- May 18, 2020 687 2739
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