This is another awesome video today, and we are about to reveal to you some of the mind-blowing
research and discoveries of scientists and an interesting observation they made on how
dozens of high energy particles are accelerators in the Milky Way galaxy.
Be sure to stick around to see what kind of damage effect it may have on earth!
Researchers have discovered a dozen ultra-powerful natural particle accelerators in our galaxy,
bringing a century-old celestial riddle one step closer to being answered.
The discoveries aid astronomers in their understanding of cosmic rays, which are charged particles
and atomic nuclei traveling through space at near light speed and carrying enormous
quantities of energy.
Cosmic rays, which were first discovered in 1912, come from practically every direction
in the Milky Way, however scientists have yet to figure out how they achieve their ultra-high
speeds, according to NASA.
According to Siming Liu, an astrophysicist at Chengdu’s Southwest Jiaotong University,
“many experts assume that cosmic rays are blasted out from massive stars as they die
in supernova explosions.”
“Stars release the same amount of energy in two months as they do throughout their
entire existence,” he continued.
The findings were based on observations made by China’s Large High Altitude Air Shower
Observatory (LHAASO), which is now under construction in Daocheng, Sichuan Province, and is one
of the country’s key national science and technology infrastructure sites.
On Monday, these findings were published in the journal Nature.
After an 11-month observation period using the completed half of the installation, scientists
led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of High Energy Physics made the
discoveries.
Scientists have also discovered photons with energies greater than 1 Peta-electron volt
(quadrillion electron-volts or PeV), which is 100 times higher than any previous record
set by a man-made accelerator on Earth.
One photon with a mass of 1.4 PeV was measured, which is the greatest value ever seen by humans.
“These discoveries challenge our current understanding of the Milky Way and usher in
a new age of UHE gamma astronomy.
The method by which high-energy particles are generated and propagated in the Milky
Way will be rethought as a result of these findings “LHASA’s lead scientist, Cao
Zhen, stated.
Even a massive bombardment like this, however, can only give cosmic rays less than a peta-electron-volt
(PeV), or a quadrillion electron-volts, according to Liu.
Observatories have captured ultra-high-energy cosmic rays with energies much above that,
but no one has yet figured out where they come from in the cosmos.
Because cosmic rays are charged entities, they are deflected by magnetic fields, which
are abundant in the Milky Way, finding their sources has been challenging, according to
Liu.
That implies a cosmic ray collected on Earth won’t return to its origin point directly,
he explained.
However, when they travel away from their sources, cosmic rays can interact with nearby
gases, producing gamma rays with a tenth of the energy of the cosmic ray.
Because these rays aren’t charged, they move in straight lines, allowing researchers
to figure out where they came from.
Even Liu and his colleagues studied gamma ray photons indirectly using China’s Large
High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), a facility under construction atop Haizi Mountain
at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau in Sichuan Province.
According to a news release, when gamma rays collide with Earth’s atmosphere, they produce
a shower of particles that may be captured by LHASA’s hundreds of detectors, which
will eventually cover an area of 0.4 square miles (1 square kilometre).
Despite the fact that only half of the array was operational at the time, the data revealed
a dozen PeVatrons scattered across the Milky Way.
Patrons are named for their ability to imbue subatomic particles with peta-electron-volts
of energy.
These beings are at least a hundred times more powerful.
The researchers also discovered the most powerful gamma-ray photon, or light particle, ever
seen, a 1.4 PeV object.
They published their findings in the journal Nature on May 17th.
There are recognized objects among the PeVatrons, such as the Crab Nebula, which is known to
contain a dead star known as a pulsar, which could be the cosmic rays’ accelerator.
However, an active star-forming region in the constellation Cygnus is included on the
list, which has experts scratching their brains as to what is ejecting such powerful particles
there.
Because LHAASO can only localize PeVatron sources to within a few tens or hundreds of
light-years, it’s difficult to tell what objects in each location are causing the acceleration,
according to Liu.
Nonetheless, astroparticle scientist Razmik Mirzoyan of the Max Planck Institute for Physics
in Germany told Live Science, “this is a huge milestone.”
LHAASO will soon be four times larger than any other telescope of its kind, allowing
it to usher in a new age of ultra-high-energy observations, according to Mirzoyan.
Mirzoyan is a member of a team working on a similar facility in the Southern Hemisphere
to focus on ultra-high-energy cosmic ray sources.
By merging data from this facility with data from electromagnetic spectrum and neutrino
telescopes, scientists will be able to better understand the universe.
He believes that within 10 years, the field will finally know where these mystery things
come from.
The various effects of these dozens of high energy particles are accelerators in the Milky
Way galaxy.
Surprisingly, these gamma rays aren’t pointing back to any known high-energy gamma-ray sources,
but rather are dispersed throughout the Milky Way.
The nuclear interaction between cosmic rays escaping from the most intense galactic sources
(“PeVatrons”) and interstellar gas in the Milky Way galaxy, according to scientists,
produces these gamma rays.
This observational data is a significant step toward determining the origin of cosmic rays,
a mystery that has perplexed humans for more than a century.
Our Milky Way galaxy is thought to emit cosmic rays with energies below a few PeV, and a
PeVatron is a source that can accelerate cosmic rays up to PeV energy.
Although supernova remnants, star-forming regions, and the supermassive black hole at
the galactic center have all been proposed as candidate PeVatrons, none have yet been
observed.
This is due to the fact that the majority of cosmic rays have an electric charge and
will lose their original direction as they travel through the Milky Way, as well as being
bent by the magnetic field.
Cosmic rays, on the other hand, can interact with the interstellar medium around their
acceleration point, producing gamma rays with about 10% of the energy of their parent cosmic
rays.
Because the magnetic field cannot modify the direction of electrically neutral gamma rays,
ultra-high-energy gamma rays (0.1-1 PeV) may be able to tell us where the Pevetrons are
in the Milky Way.
Cosmic rays are high-energy particles from outer space that are mostly made up of protons
and nuclei, with a few electrons/positrons and gamma rays thrown in for good measure.
History of how it all begun.
In 1990, the Tibet AS experiment began.
The current air shower array consists of more than 500 radiation detectors spread across
around 65,000 square metres after various extensions.
In 2014, new water Cherenkov-type muon detectors with a total effective area of 3400 m2 were
placed under the existing surface cosmic-ray detectors to improve sensitivity to gamma-ray
observations.
This property can be exploited to decrease the background caused by proton/nucleus events
since gamma-ray events are muon poor and the majority proton/nucleus events are muon rich.
The Tibet AS experiment successfully reduced proton/nucleus background events to one millionth
using this technique, making it the most efficient experiment of its sort ever.
As a result, ultra-high-energy gamma rays can be detected almost free of cosmic-ray
background occurrences.
Surprisingly, these gamma rays do not originate from the most powerful known high-energy gamma-ray
sources, but rather are dispersed throughout the Milky Way!
After escaping from the acceleration sources, scientists discovered
that these gamma rays most likely came from the interaction of PeV cosmic rays with the
interstellar medium (PeVatrons).
The formation and subsequent decay of neutral pions yields gamma rays with energy around
one-tenth that of their parent cosmic rays, a process known as “hadronic origin.”
The Tibet AS experiment discovered very intense gamma rays from the Crab Nebula, a pulsar
wind nebula in the Milky Way, two years ago.
Those gamma rays were almost certainly generated in a different way, such as by high-energy
electrons/positrons in the nebula, a process known as “leptonic origin.”
Scientists from the Tibet AS experiment found gamma rays from the galactic disc regions
with energy ranging from 0.1 to 1 PeV.
Future observations with LHASSO and other equipment, according to Liu, should one day
assist pinpoint how cosmic rays achieve such incredible speeds and intensities.
“We’re hoping to solve this problem,” he stated.
“These findings pave the way for a solution to this question.”
There is also a new Discovery On Mars That Changes Everything, Spacex Found it and it
is TERRIFYING.