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    Cosmic rays tagged posts

    Astronomers find Cosmic Rays driving Galaxy’s Winds

    October 26, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Credit: Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences- IPM & European Southern Observatory (ESO)

    Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have discovered an important new clue about how galaxies put the brakes on vigorous episodes of star formation. Their new study of the neighboring galaxy M33 indicates that fast-moving cosmicray electrons can drive winds that blow away the gas needed to form new stars.

    Such winds are responsible for slowing the rate of star formation as galaxies evolve over time. However, shock waves from supernova explosions and energetic, black hole-powered jets of material coming from galactic cores have been considered the primary drivers of those winds...

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    Astronomers confirm Star Wreck as Source of Extreme Cosmic Particles

    August 15, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This sequence compares Fermi results in three energy ranges. Pulsar J2229+6114 is the brilliant source at the top, the northern tip of supernova remnant G106.3+2.7 (outlined in green). In each energy range, the sequence first shows the number of gamma rays and then the excess amounts compared with expectations from a model of the background. Brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays or excess amounts. At the highest energies, a new source of gamma rays emerges, produced when protons accelerated by the supernova’s shock wave strike a nearby gas cloud.
    Credit: NASA/Fermi/Fang et al. 2022

    Astronomers have long sought the launch sites for some of the highest-energy protons in our galaxy...

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    Nova Outbursts are apparently a source for Cosmic Rays

    April 16, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The binary star system RS Ophiuchi: Matter flows from the red giant onto the white dwarf. The newly added stellar envelopes explode in a bright nova about every 15 years.
    © superbossa.com / MPP

    The MAGIC telescopes have observed the nova RS Ophiuchi shining brightly in gamma rays at extremely high energy. The Gamma rays emanate from protons that are accelerated to very high energies in the shock front following the explosion. This suggests that novae are also a source of the ubiquitous cosmic radiation in the universe which consists mainly of protons rich in energy, which race through space at almost the speed of light.

    Light on, light off — this is how one could describe the behavior of the nova, which goes by the name RS Ophiuchi (RS Oph)...

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    Unveiling a Century-old Mystery: Where the Milky Way’s Cosmic Rays come from

    August 26, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Astronomers have succeeded for the first time in quantifying the proton and electron components of cosmic rays in a supernova remnant. At least 70% of the very-high-energy gamma rays emitted from cosmic rays are due to relativistic protons, according to the novel imaging analysis of radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray radiation. The acceleration site of protons, the main components of cosmic rays, has been a 100-year mystery in modern astrophysics, this is the first time that the amount of cosmic rays being produced in a supernova remnant has been quantitatively shown and is an epoch-making step in the elucidation of the origin of cosmic rays.

    The origin of cosmic rays, the particles with the highest energy in the universe, has been a great mystery since their discovery in 1912...

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