Cosmic rays Hotspot: Physicists closer to finding the mysterious sources

This map of the northern sky shows cosmic ray concentrations, with a "hotspot" with a disproportionate number of cosmic rays shown as the bright red and yellow spot, upper right. 

An international team of physicists using the University of Utah-operated Telescope Array near Delta, Utah, say their discovery of the hotspot should narrow the search for the mysterious source or sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, which carry more energy than any other known particle in the universe. 

Credit: Kazumasa Kawata, University of Tokyo Institute for Cosmic Ray Research.

An observatory run by the University of Utah found a "hotspot" beneath the Big Dipper emitting a disproportionate number of the highest-energy cosmic rays.

The discovery moves physics another step toward identifying the mysterious sources of the most energetic particles in the universe.

Gordon Thomson

"This puts us closer to finding out the sources, but no cigar yet," says University of Utah physicist Gordon Thomson, spokesman and co-principal investigator for the $25 million Telescope Array cosmic ray observatory west of Delta, Utah; the Northern Hemisphere's largest cosmic ray detector.

"All we see is a blob in the sky, and inside this blob there is all sorts of stuff – various types of objects, that could be the source" of the powerful cosmic rays, he adds. "Now we know where to look."

A new study identifying a hotspot in the northern sky for ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays has been accepted for publication by Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Thomson says many astrophysicists suspect ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays are generated by active galactic nuclei (AGNs), in which material is sucked into a supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy, while other material is spewed away in a beam-like jet known as a blazar.

Another popular possibility is that the highest-energy cosmic rays come from some supernovas (exploding stars) that emit gamma rays bursts.

Lower-energy cosmic rays come from the sun, other stars and exploding stars, but the source or sources of the most energetic cosmic rays has been a decades-long mystery.

The study was conducted by 125 researchers in the Telescope Array project, including Thomson and 31 other University of Utah physicists, plus 94 other scientists from the University of Tokyo (ICRR) and 28 other research institutions in Japan, the United States, South Korea, Russia and Belgium.

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More Information: Indications of Intermediate-Scale Anisotropy of Cosmic Rays with Energy Greater Than 57 EeV in the Northern Sky Measured with the Surface Detector of the Telescope Array Experiment - Authors: K. Kawata, et al.

ESA Venus Express: Venus Dried Out Because It's Closer to Sun

This false-colour image of cloud features seen on Venus by the Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) on the European Space Agency's Venus Express.

The image was captured from a distance of 30 000 km on 8 December 2011. 

ESA Venus Express has been in orbit around the planet since 2006.

CREDIT: ESA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Taking a closer look at the history of Venus, including how the planet transformed into a hellish hot house, may help astronomers predict the evolution of alien worlds, scientists say.

Ultraviolet rays from the sun sapped Venus' atmosphere of water during the planet's evolution, keeping it in a "prolonged molten state" for longer than Earth's molten state, a team of Japanese scientists has found.

Venus' vastly different environment came because it formed closer to the sun than Earth did, the researchers said.

With alien planets now a planetary-science frontier, studying Venus — which is within easy reach of Earth — will give clues about what to look for in exoplanet surfaces, they added.

"In a situation such [that] a magma ocean sustains very long, the planets are covered with a thick atmosphere.

Therefore, unfortunately, it would be difficult to observe their surface temperatures directly," said Keiko Hamano, a planetary scientist with Tokyo University who led the research.

"According to previous studies, however," he added, "hot atmospheres could contain unique species, such as alkali- and halogen-bearing gases. So, we hope to recognize hot surfaces indirectly by detecting their signatures on future missions."

NASA Cowboys to lasso asteroid and tow it closer to Earth

In this Jan. 13, 2013 file photo, the Orion Exploration Flight Test 1 crew module is seen in the Operations and Checkout building during a media tour at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. 

Senate Science and Space subcommittee Chairman Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. says President Barack Obama and NASA are planning for a robotic spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon. 

Then astronauts would explore it in 2021. Nelson said the plan would speed up by four years an existing mission to land astronauts on an asteroid by bringing the space rock closer to Earth. 

Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

NASA is planning for a robotic spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon for astronauts to explore, a top U.S. senator disclosed Friday.

The robotic ship would capture the 500-ton 25-foot (450 metric ton, 7.6 meters) asteroid in 2019.

Then using an Orion space capsule, now being developed, a crew of about four astronauts would nuzzle up next to the rock in 2021 for spacewalking exploration, according to a government document.

Sen. Bill Nelson

Sen. Bill Nelson said the plan would speed up by four years the existing mission to land astronauts on an asteroid by bringing the space rock closer to Earth.

Nelson, a Democrat who is chairman of the Senate science and space subcommittee, said Friday that President Barack Obama is putting $100 million in planning money for the accelerated asteroid mission in the 2014 budget that comes out next week.

The money would be used to find the right small asteroid. "It really is a clever concept," Nelson said in a news conference in Florida the state where NASA launches take place.

"Go find your ideal candidate for an asteroid. Go get it robotically and bring it back."