What’s in the news?

• Scientists have detected one of the most powerful cosmic rays ever slamming into Earth but they have no idea what caused it or where it came from. 
• The extremely high-energy particle has been named Amaterasu after the Japanese Sun goddess, and it seemingly arrived from a void in space where nothing is known to exist.

About Amaterasu

• The Amaterasu particle has an energy exceeding 240 exa-electron volts (EeV). That is millions of times more powerful than the particles produced by the Large Hadron Collider, which is the most powerful accelerator ever built. 
• It is second only to the “Oh-My-God” particle, another high-energy cosmic ray detected in 1991. That came in at 320 EeV.

What are Cosmic Rays?

• Cosmic rays are charged particles originating from elsewhere in our galaxy or the universe and they travel close to the speed of light. 
• They are echoes of violent celestial events that are constantly arriving at Earth. However, this event had extraordinary energy and is exceptionally rare.

The Puzzle

• The newly detected particle, Amaterasu, was identified by the Telescope Array in Utah, United States. 
• Operational since 2008, it is a specialized cosmic ray detector which comprises 507 surface detectors spread over 700 square kilometers.
• It has detected over 30 ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, but the Amaterasu particle, which struck Earth’s atmosphere on May 27, 2021, is the largest observed to date.
• The exact sources of these high-energy particles remain elusive, despite extensive research. 
• The scientists propose three explanations for the enigmatic origin of the particle—-One, it could be from a source that we have not yet identified. Two, It might have been magnetically deflected much higher than current models predict. Or three, scientists might need to rewrite their incomplete understanding of high-energy particle physics.