Our universe is full of mysterious phenomena that often make physicists scratch their heads.
I like to cover those topics on this channel, usually in the form of weird stars or interesting
planets, in other words large objects.
But mysteries in science can also come in small packages, this particular one being
a single atomic nucleus.
But it wasn't just any nucleus, this one hit a detector traveling at 99 percent followed
by twenty-one nines the speed of light.
Detected on October 15, 1991 at a detector operated by the University of Utah, the extreme
energy of this particle, or ultra-high energy cosmic ray, had the kinetic energy equivalent
to a baseball traveling at 60 miles per hour.
That's a single atomic nucleus with that power.
The energy of this particle shocked scientists at the time and to this day it's unclear just
what could accelerate a particle of matter to that kind of speed.
Since then, other particles with similar energies have been detected, though they remain rare,
and oddly enough recent studies have suggested that the particles may originate from a certain
area within the constellation of Ursa Major.
And there is also evidence that unlike most cosmic rays, which tend to be made up of protons
or helium nuclei, these high energy ones may in fact be iron nuclei, which adds to the
mystery.
Normal cosmic rays can be created in a number of different environments, perhaps most notably
in supernovas, and they can even occasionally include anti-matter particles, such as anti-protons
and positrons.
But with ultra-high energy cosmic rays, the hypothesized sources include spinning black
holes launching them, or pulsars or neutron stars, no one knows for sure.
But two hypotheses for the origin of these particles are noteworthy because they involve
abnormal states of matter.
The first weirdness involves dark matter.
Widely seen as one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of the universe, the abilities and
properties of dark matter are not well understood, outside of the effects of its gravity on the
normal matter of the universe.
In a paper by Yuri Pavlov and Andrey Grib, link in the description below, they suggest
that there is a method for dark matter to decay and result in the creation of these
high energy cosmic rays.
Dark matter is weakly interactive, usually.
The paper describes a process where a heavy particle of dark matter can decay into two
virtual particles which can interact with normal matter.
If these particles are near a black hole, one can fall into the black hole and the other
ejected out where it interacts with normal matter falling into the black hole.
This could result in a high energy proton ejected that may be consistent with a high
energy cosmic ray.
But in the end, that idea suffers from anything related to the subject of dark matter.
We just don't know what the stuff is or, in general, the ins and outs of how it works.
And, speaking of not knowing how a form of matter really works brings us to the second
option which has never been seen, only theorized.
It's called strange matter.
This really deals with two forms of abnormal matter that may be present in neutron stars.
A neutron star has gravity so great that normal atomic bonds aren't possible, leaving essentially
a big ball of densely packed neutrons, hence the term neutron star.
But there may be another state where the gravity is sufficient for the neutrons to break down
into their constituent quarks creating quark matter.
The transition, or combustion, of a neutron star into a quark star is one possible source
for the high energy cosmic rays.
As it combusts, the neutron star's magnetic field would collapse releasing particles at
very high energies.
That might account for the rarity of high energy cosmic rays.
But, again, this is a mechanism that isn't well understood, and the science of strange
matter is still developing.
In the end, the origin of these kinds of cosmic rays will likely be mysterious for a long
time, all of the possible mechanisms for creating them are at the forefront of theoretical physics
and astronomy.
But the idea that something in this universe can accelerate a particle of matter to energies
40 million times greater than anything we can do in a particle accelerator is a humbling
thought indeed.
Thanks for listening!
I am science fiction author, futurist and inventor of the anti-matter donut John Michael
Godier; Arthur C. Clarke got to be the inventor of the communications satellite, I get the
anti-jelly donut and be sure to check out my books at your favorite online book retailer
and subscribe to my channel for regular, in-depth explorations into the interesting, weird and
unknown aspects of this amazing universe in which we live.