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The most knock-down cosmic rays rain down on Earth may number not from remote corners of the universe but from great dark matter particles that decimate themselves in our own backyard .
Cosmic raysare high - vigor subatomic particle that constantly stream through the cosmos . They are largely made of protons , but they can now and again be made of the nuclei of heavy element , such as atomic number 2 and even iron . Despite being microscopic , they take a punch . Each one move at nearly thespeed of light , and the fastest ones have free energy trillions of times stronger than our most powerful subatomic particle atom smasher .
The supernova remnant W44 glows magenta where powerful cosmic rays collide with gas. Scientists are trying to trace the origins of the strongest cosmic rays in the universe — and a new study provides an unusual answer.
astrophysicist understand the origins of most cosmic ray . Any time there is an industrious event in the population , it ’s potential to acquire a shower of cosmic ray . This can let in supernovas , merging stars and matter being swallowed byblack maw .
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But we do not fully understand the inception of the most powerful cosmic rays . The problem is that , although there are plenty of industrious rootage for them , those sources are billions of unaccented - year off . These superenergized corpuscle can not journey those dandy distance without slowing down significantly . So perhaps their origin are much closer to home .
And perhaps their root are much more exotic than a bare cosmic explosion . Ina recent paperthat has not yet been match - reviewed , a Russian astrophysicist proposes that the most powerful cosmic rays originate from an alien form of dark topic .
Heavy, dark, and self-destructive
Thisdark matterparticle would itself be very sonorous — far hard than even the heaviest known speck , the top quark cheese . Known as a scalaron , this dark thing particle would have been created in the other moment of cosmic history , during an epoch bed as ostentation , when the universe became many orders of magnitude larger in an split second .
Since then , the scalaron has largely remained in the background , as it ’s invisible to lightness and bear on the balance of the universe only through its gravitational influence . But very , very seldom , two scalarons can cross — and , in the summons , annihilate each other in a flash of energy . That instant can let in passing gumptious cosmic ray .
Scalarons are everywhere , so they can grow ultra - high - vitality cosmic rays within our own coltsfoot . But this is where fun ideas must meet data-based reality . If the scalarons intersect too often , they will bring forth more gamey - vim cosmic rays than we observe . Conversely , if they do n’t cross and extinguish often enough , then it wo n’t match sleep with observations .
It just so befall that it ’s potential for annihilating scalarons to be creditworthy for the number of high - free energy cosmic - ray detections we have ; the densities and fundamental interaction frequencies match the known behavior of gloomy matter .
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However , this is a flimsy surmise . The output of scalarons in the early universe expect adjustment to Einstein’stheory of general relativitythat may not nurse up to further scrutiny . And there are contend proposition for excuse the eminent - vigour cosmic rays . For instance , they may be produced inside molecular cloud in our own galaxy , without requiring dark matter .
Still , it ’s an interesting idea , and it shows how the extreme of our universe can be used as a trial run bed for radical estimation . By continue to act on these idea , we can find other mode to test them observationally . And if this idea sour out , it will give us a window into not just glowering thing but the former universe itself .
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