Amaterasu:
Amaterasu:
·
It is one of the
highest-energy cosmic rays ever detected.
·
It has been named
Amaterasu after the Japanese sun goddess.
·
It has an energy
exceeding 240 exa-electron volts (EeV). That is millions of times more than
particles produced in the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful accelerator
ever built, and equivalent to the energy of a golf ball travelling at 95mph.
·
It comes only second to
the Oh-My-God particle, another ultra-high-energy cosmic ray that came in at
320 EeV, detected in 1991.
·
Amaterasu appears to have
emerged from the Local Void, an empty area of space bordering the Milky Way
galaxy.
What
are Cosmic Rays?
·
They are echoes of
violent celestial events that have stripped matter of its subatomic structures
and hurled it through the universe at nearly the speed of light.
·
Essentially, cosmic rays
are charged particles with a wide range of energies consisting of positive
protons, negative electrons, or entire atomic nuclei that travel through space
and rain down onto Earth nearly constantly.
·
They hit Earth’s upper
atmosphere and blast apart the nucleus of oxygen and nitrogen gas, generating
many secondary particles.
·
These travel a short
distance in the atmosphere and repeat the process, building a shower of
billions of secondary particles that scatter to the surface.
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