News tagged with cosmic rays
Can solar flares hurt astronauts?
Solar flares, coronal mass ejections, high-energy photons, cosmic rays… space is full of various forms of radiation that a human wouldn’t want to be exposed to for very long. Energized particles ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jan 24, 2012 |
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New evidence for complex molecules on Pluto's surface
(PhysOrg.com) -- The new and highly sensitive Cosmic Origins Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a strong ultraviolet-wavelength absorber on Pluto's surface, providing new evidence ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 20, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (12) |
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A new kind of metal in the deep Earth
(PhysOrg.com) -- The crushing pressures and intense temperatures in Earth's deep interior squeeze atoms and electrons so closely together that they interact very differently. With depth materials change. New ...
Dec 19, 2011 |
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Preparing for future human exploration, RAD measures radiation on journey to Mars
The Radiation Assessment Detector, the first instrument on NASA's next rover mission to Mars to begin science operations, was powered up and began collecting data Dec. 6, almost two weeks ahead of schedule. ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 13, 2011 |
5 / 5 (4) |
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Still in the dark about dark matter
Dark matter, the mysterious stuff thought to make up about 80 percent of matter in the universe, has become even more inscrutable.
Dec 06, 2011 |
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In the heart of Cygnus, NASA's Fermi reveals a cosmic-ray cocoon
(PhysOrg.com) -- The constellation Cygnus, now visible in the western sky as twilight deepens after sunset, hosts one of our galaxy's richest-known stellar construction zones. Astronomers viewing the region ...
Nov 28, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (12) |
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Cosmic particle accelerators get things going
(PhysOrg.com) -- ESA's Cluster satellites have discovered that cosmic particle accelerators are more efficient than previously thought. The discovery has revealed the initial stages of acceleration for the ...
Nov 17, 2011 |
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First result from a new generation of reactor neutrino experiments
Physicists of the Double Chooz experiment detected a short-range disappearance of electron antineutrinos. They presented this result on Wednesday 9 November 2011 at the LowNu conference in Seoul, Korea. It helps determine ...
Nov 09, 2011 |
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Physicists scrutinize the universe with a novel camera
(PhysOrg.com) -- For the first time, a telescope has been equipped with a camera based on a new technology that uses semiconductors. This instrument will observe the flashes of light that are produced by gamma ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Nov 07, 2011 |
5 / 5 (7) |
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Microbe risk when rover wheels hit martian dirt
Earth microbes trying to make it to Mars must survive sterilization in NASA's clean rooms, harsh cosmic rays during months of space travel, and the Red Planet's unforgiving surface environment. But any bacteria ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Sep 06, 2011 |
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CERN CLOUD research team adds new pieces to puzzle of cloud formation
(PhysOrg.com) -- Jasper Kirkby, a physicist at CERN and colleagues have built an experimental climate chamber to measure the impact of cosmic rays on aerosol creation to mimic the creation of clouds in Earth's ...
Aug 25, 2011 |
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Researchers prove existence of antiproton radiation belt around Earth
Italian researchers using data from the satellite PAMELA have proven that theories showing there ought to be a ring of antiprotons encircling the Earth due to cosmic rays colliding with nuclei in the upper atmosphere are ...
Aug 05, 2011 |
4.5 / 5 (22) |
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Oh-My-God Particles
Cosmic rays are really sub-atomic particles, being mainly protons (hydrogen nuclei) and occasionally helium or heavier atomic nuclei and very occasionally electrons. Cosmic ray particles are very energetic ...
Jun 13, 2011 |
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A big surprise from the edge of the solar system: magnetic bubbles (w/ video)
(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Voyager probes are truly going where no one has gone before. Gliding silently toward the stars, 9 billion miles from Earth, they are beaming back news from the most distant, unexplored ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jun 09, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (35) |
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AMS is ready to discover the particle universe
(PhysOrg.com) -- The largest and most complex scientific instrument yet to be fitted to the International Space Station was installed today. Taken into space by the Space Shuttle, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer ...
May 20, 2011 |
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Cosmic ray
Cosmic rays are energetic particles originating from outer space that impinge on Earth's atmosphere. Almost 90% of all the incoming cosmic ray particles are protons, almost 10% are helium nuclei (alpha particles), and slightly under 1% are heavier elements and electrons (beta minus particles). The term ray is a misnomer, as cosmic particles arrive individually, not in the form of a ray or beam of particles.
The variety of particle energies reflects the wide variety of sources. The origins of these particles range from energetic processes on the Sun all the way to as yet unknown events in the farthest reaches of the visible universe. Cosmic rays can have energies of over 1020 eV, far higher than the 1012 to 1013 eV that man-made particle accelerators can produce. (See Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays for a description of the detection of a single particle with an energy of about 50 J, the same as a well-hit tennis ball at 42 m/s [about 94 mph].) There has been interest in investigating cosmic rays of even greater energies.
For more information about Cosmic ray, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
