Telescope Array scientists have detected a powerful cosmic ray of unknown nature
An international collaboration of scientists and researchers from the Telescope Array project has detected the second most powerful cosmic ray ever observed, the nature of which cannot yet be determined, according to a statement from representatives of the University of Utah.
“Tracing the trajectory of the new particle (which makes up the ray. – Ed. note) to its source fails to identify something with a high enough energy level to produce it. That’s the mystery – what the hell is going on?” – shared John Matthews, a Telescope Array representative at the University of Utah.
According to the university, in 1991, during an experiment called “Eye of the Fly”, researchers from Utah, using a 700 square kilometer telescope array, detected the most powerful cosmic rays in the history of observations. The particles that made up these rays were called “Oh-My-God”. According to astrophysicists, nothing in the galaxy could produce such a stream, and the energy of the particle was greater than was theoretically possible for cosmic rays. Such a particle, emphasizes the U of U publication, cannot exist in nature.
However, in May 2021, the Telescope Array team discovered the second strongest cosmic ray flux. Later, in November 2023, the researchers published a paper indicating that the particles, named “Amaterasu” in honor of the Japanese sun goddess, may follow elementary particle laws unknown to science.
“It could be defects in the structure of space-time, colliding cosmic strings. I’m just spitting out crazy ideas that people come up with because there’s just no universally accepted explanation,” explained University of Utah professor John Belz.
Earlier, a team of scientists led by astronomer Anna Ho from Cornell University detected the optical transient AT2022tsd, a flare a hundred billion times the brightness of the Sun.
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