{"id":143870,"date":"2022-08-11T01:22:30","date_gmt":"2022-08-11T06:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/nasas-fermi-telescope-confirms-star-wreck-as-source-of-extreme-cosmic-particles"},"modified":"2022-08-11T01:22:30","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T06:22:30","slug":"nasas-fermi-telescope-confirms-star-wreck-as-source-of-extreme-cosmic-particles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/nasas-fermi-telescope-confirms-star-wreck-as-source-of-extreme-cosmic-particles","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Fermi telescope confirms star wreck as source of extreme cosmic particles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oYm-0MX_3HE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Astronomers have long sought the launch sites for some of the highest-energy protons in our galaxy. Now a study using 12 years of data from NASA\u2019s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope confirms that one supernova remnant is just such a place.<\/p>\n<p>Fermi has shown that the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/shock+waves\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">shock waves<\/a> of exploded stars boost particles to speeds comparable to that of light. Called <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/cosmic+rays\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">cosmic rays<\/a>, these particles mostly take the form of protons, but can include atomic nuclei and electrons. Because they all carry an electric charge, their paths become scrambled as they whisk through our galaxy\u2019s magnetic field. Since we can no longer tell which direction they originated from, this masks their birthplace. But when these particles collide with interstellar gas near the supernova remnant, they produce a telltale glow in gamma rays\u2014the highest-energy light there is.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheorists think the highest-energy cosmic ray protons in the Milky Way reach a million billion electron volts, or PeV energies,\u201d said Ke Fang, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. \u201cThe precise nature of their sources, which we call PeVatrons, has been difficult to pin down.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Astronomers have long sought the launch sites for some of the highest-energy protons in our galaxy. Now a study using 12 years of data from NASA\u2019s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope confirms that one supernova remnant is just such a place. Fermi has shown that the shock waves of exploded stars boost particles to speeds comparable [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}