Cosmic rays tagged posts

From its new vantage point on the International Space Station’s Japanese Experiment Module – Exposed Facility, the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (ISS-CREAM) mission, shown in the inset illustration, will study cosmic rays to determine their sources and acceleration mechanisms. Credit: NASA

A new experiment set for an Aug. 14 launch to the International Space Station will provide an unprecedented look at a rain of particles from deep space, called cosmic rays, that constantly showers our planet. The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass mission destined for the International Space Station (ISS-CREAM) is designed to measure the highest-energy particles of any detector yet flown in space...

The MMS satellites encounter a shock wave that forms when a fast wind of charged particles from the Sun slams into Earth’s magnetic field. Credit: APS/Carin Cain

In a new study researchers at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics have used measurements from NASA’s MMS (Magnetospheric MultiScale) satellites to reveal that there are ripples, or surface waves, moving along the surface of shocks in space. Such ripples in shocks can affect how plasma is heated and are potential sites of particle acceleration.

Most visible matter in the Universe consists of ionized gas known as plasma. Shock waves in plasmas form around planets, stars and supernovas. Shocks in supernova explosions are thought to be the main source of cosmic rays – very high energy charged particles from space...

Will astronauts traveling to Mars remember much of it? Credit: © cosmicvue / Fotolia: Elements of this image furnished by NASA

Will astronauts traveling to Mars remember much of it? That’s the question concerning University of California, Irvine scientists probing a phenomenon called “space brain.” UCI’s Charles Limoli and colleagues found that exposure to highly energetic charged particles – much like those found in the galactic cosmic rays that will bombard astronauts during extended spaceflights – causes significant long-term brain damage in test rodents, resulting in cognitive impairments and dementia.

“This is not positive news for astronauts deployed on a 2-3 year round trip to Mars,” said Prof Limoli, UCI’s School of Medicine...

Vast bubble in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way visible from the Southern Hemisphere, was formed by the explosive death of one or more of the cluster of massive stars inside the bubble. Cosmic rays reaching Earth are created and accelerated by similar explosions. Credit: Gemini South Telescope in Chile. Composite by Travis Rector of the University of Alaska Anchorage

Supernova exploded in our ‘galactic neighborhood’ within the last few million years Most of the cosmic rays arriving at Earth from our galaxy come from nearby clusters of massive stars, according to new observations from the Cosmic Ray Isotope Spectrometer (CRIS), an instrument aboard NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft...