Astronomers capture an ultra-energetic cosmic ray

A record cosmic ray was detected in the United States by the Telescope Array. Its energy is comparable to that of the most energetic cosmic ray ever observed, “Oh-My-God”, which caused a stir in 1991. Astronomers named it Amaterasu, after the sun goddess, according to popular belief. Shinto.

In this new science post, with Mathilde Fontez, editor-in-chief of the scientific magazine Epsiloonwe are talking about a strange ray, which has just been captured by astronomers, and it looks a bit like science fiction…

franceinfo: Astronomers have discovered a strange ray, a cosmic ray, particularly energetic?

Mathilde Fontez: Yes, it looks like the start of a movie. But it’s very real: it’s an international team, which couldn’t be more serious, which used a network of telescopes, the Telescope Array, located in Utah, United States, which made the announcement this week.

The detectors picked up a signal at the energy crazy: a million times more powerful than the energy reached in particle accelerators. This cosmic ray was captured on May 27, 2021, but it was only announced today, time for analyses.

Is this the first time we’ve captured a ray like that?

At this energy, it’s the second time. Astronomers often capture cosmic rays: ct is a known phenomenon: we know that bursts of energetic particles are emitted by the explosions of stars for example, and by the black holes which also reign at the heart of galaxies. These streams of particles can hit the Earth, and be detected by telescopes, on the ground or in orbit. We understand their behavior well.

But there is only one other ray that reached this energy range, in 1991: it was called “Oh-My-God”, at the time. It surprised researchers so much that it took them two years to make it public. There, it’s the same thing, at the beginning, the Japanese researcher, who carried out this analysis, admits that he didn’t believe it…

We don’t know at all what it is?

No. For “Oh-My-God,” as for this one – researchers called it Amaterasu, after the sun goddess who, according to Shinto beliefs, was instrumental in the creation of Japan. For these two cosmic rays, there is no explanation. Because, even supposing that a monstrous, very active galaxy could have emitted such a ray, we should find it by observing in the line of sight of the signal.

However, the researchers found nothing. The direction of the Amaterasu ray falls on a void, where there are only a few galaxies. The only one roughly aligned is much too far away for this ray to come from. We don’t know what emitted this cosmic ray.

Obviously, we think of AND…

Obviously, mBut researchers instead evoke other exotic explanations, which are not far from being as fascinating. Like new physical laws, new forces, new particles, which could have deflected this ray, allowed it to arrive on Earth, with this energy. A strange physics, which theorists study seriously, for other reasons. So to be continued…