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Astrophysics

Not-so-cosmic rays

Nature volume 388, pages 24–25 (1997)Cite this article

Cosmic rays are energetic particles that constantly hit the Earth. They include protons and heavier nuclei, along with a few electrons and positrons. It is usually assumed that the flux of cosmic rays is roughly the same throughout our Galaxy, but new data published by Anatolya Erlykin and Arnold Wolfendale may mean that what we see contains the signature of a nearby source, probably a young supernova remnant1.

Cosmic rays have been seen up to an energy of nearly 1021 electron volts (eV) — far beyond any dream of the physicists at the particle accelerators at Stanford, Fermilab or CERN. The flux is very low, from about 10 particles cm-2s-1 at energies near 109 eV, to about 1 particle km-2 per century near 1020 eV.

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Figure 1: Three knees.

References

  1. Erlykin, A. & Wolfendale, A. Astroparticle Phys. 7, 1–12 (1997).

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  1. Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy, Bonn, D-53010, Germany

    Peter L. Biermann

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  1. Peter L. Biermann
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Biermann, P. Not-so-cosmic rays. Nature 388, 24–25 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/40279

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