Highly Energetic Electrons Hit Earth from an Unusual Nearby Source

Astrophysicists have detected the highest-energy electrons ever recorded, raining down on Earth from a mysterious nearby source. These cosmic rays carry trillions of times the energy of visible light, suggesting they originate from a powerful source relatively close to our solar system.

Earth is constantly bombarded by cosmic radiation, primarily from our Sun. However, other sources, such as quasars, supernovae, and gamma-ray bursts, can also emit particles with extremely high energy. Now, scientists have identified the highest-energy electrons ever seen coming from space.

Energy is measured in electronvolts (eV), where 1 eV is the kinetic energy gained by a single electron when accelerated by one volt. Most cosmic ray electrons carry energies in the range of a few hundred gigaelectronvolts (GeV), but the newly detected electrons reach an extraordinary 40 teraelectronvolts (TeV) — that’s trillions of eV.

This discovery came from a team analyzing 10 years of data from the HESS Observatory in Namibia. The facility detects cosmic rays by observing how they interact with the Earth’s atmosphere, triggering a shower of secondary particles. The composition of these showers reveals information about the original particle.

New Algorithms Reveal High-Energy Electrons Up to 40 TeV in Cosmic Rays

Electrons and positrons account for about 1% of cosmic rays, making them hard to detect. Using new algorithms, researchers filtered high-energy electrons from the HESS dataset, revealing particles with energies up to 40 TeV.

Determining the source of these cosmic ray electrons is challenging. As they travel through magnetic fields in space, their paths become distorted, making it difficult to trace their origins. While pinpointing a direction is nearly impossible, astronomers can estimate the distance traveled. The longer these particles travel, the more energy they lose. Therefore, electrons with energies below 1 TeV likely originated from distant objects, while those at the higher end of the spectrum must have come from a closer source.

The team concluded that these high-energy electrons likely came from a source within a few thousand light-years of our solar system, which is quite close in cosmic terms. The most probable source, they suggest, is a pulsar — a type of neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation from its poles. It could be a single pulsar, or perhaps several within that distance.

Read Original Article: New Atlas

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