Mar 11, 2021
Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays Detected in Star Clusters – Energies Beyond Those From Supernovae Capable of Devouring Entire Solar Systems
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: cosmology, particle physics
For decades, researchers assumed the cosmic rays that regularly bombard Earth from the far reaches of the galaxy are born when stars go supernova — when they grow too massive to support the fusion occurring at their cores and explode.
Those gigantic explosions do indeed propel atomic particles at the speed of light great distances. However, new research suggests even supernovae — capable of devouring entire solar systems — are not strong enough to imbue particles with the sustained energies needed to reach petaelectronvolts (PeVs), the amount of kinetic energy attained by very high-energy cosmic rays.