Spotting Telescope
Cosmic ray hotspots Puzzle Researchers
Hot on the heels of speculation that cosmic rays may have revealed the signing of elusive dark matter in space, new observations could challenge that idea and reinforce an alternative explanation.
An experiment in seven years the Milagro cosmic ray detector near Los Alamos, New Mexico, has shown "the bright patches" of high energy cosmic rays on Sky1 - something incompatible with a source of dark matter.
Cosmic rays are charged particles, mainly protons and electrons, which occur in space and generally have a characteristic energy spectrum - the higher its energy, which are rarer.
But last week, researchers working Delgado advanced in the ionization calorimeter (ATIC) experiment, which uses sensors by a high altitude balloon to measure cosmic ray electrons over Antarctica, reported an unexpected hit in the energy spectrum, corresponding to an excess of electrons with energies between 300 and 800 gigaelectronvolts2.
Advice to the anomaly have seen before. A satellite observatory - Payload Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light nuclei Astrophysics (Pamela) - detects a ray positron excess cosmic, anti-particles like electrons energies3. And a Japanese balloon flame detector transmission electron telescope with scintillating fibers (BETS) also found a small excess of cosmic ray electrons energy4 high.
These cosmic rays may be the decay products of hypothetical dark matter particles, believed to represent about 85% of all matter in the Universe. Astronomers have benefited from the gravitational effects dark matter to explain why rotating galaxies are not separated, and rotating in space. But as its name suggests, dark matter can not be seen directly and its identity remains obscure.
A common assumption is that dark matter consists of a hitherto unknown particle that interacts weakly with other forms of matter. In some theories, two dark matter particles are predicted to annihilate when they collide, producing a high energy electron-positron pair. This could explain ATIC cosmic ray hit and indications that the PAMELA data. But if that is the case, anomalous cosmic rays are distributed more or less uniformly across the sky.
By contrast, the Milagro team, led by Jordan Goodman at the University of Maryland, College Park, which is cosmic ray protons grouped in two 'hot spots': one between the constellations of Orion and Taurus, the other near Gemini. They think the excess of cosmic rays may come from exotic sources such as neutron stars known as pulsars, rapidly spinning, rather than matter annihilations dark.
Dark Matter Mystery
Goodman stresses that it is still unclear whether the ATIC and the results are related Miracle, because the former measure cosmic ray electrons while the last proton detection. But he says that the sources of the protons that could plausibly have also been generated electrons and positrons are in the previous studies. "If it's the same phenomenon takes all, then there is dark matter," he says.
But the explanation Dark mater is not yet ruled. "I was totally perplexed by the hot spots, but I see no reason to connect to the ATIC results," says Dan Hooper, a theoretical physicist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.
The Milagro detector is not intended primarily for research of cosmic rays, but is used for gamma ray astronomy. When high-energy gamma rays hit our atmosphere cause a flood of alien particles. These particles annihilate in a collision with the water in the tank Miracle giant, producing a flash of light that can be recorded by sensors.
However, 99.9% of the flashes seen by Milagro come from collisions of cosmic ray protons, said Goodman. This creates a background signal that must be subtracted to identify the rays gamma energy astrophysical sources. Goodman says that the search for point sources of cosmic ray protons in this context was a surprise for them.
A previous experiment from cosmic rays called the Tibet air shower array, by a team of researchers in Japan and China, saw the great differences in the intensity of cosmic rays between the two hemispheres5, but nobody had seen before these concentrations of smaller scale.
The Miracle team suggests that the protons, with energies of about 10,000 gigaelectronvolts can be generated in the extreme environment astrophysicists superdense neutron star or pulsar. At least some rays high-energy cosmic have previously been shown to come from supermassive black hole in the vicinity galaxies6.
"We do not know what it is causing, "Goodman admits. He suggests that the location may be partly caused by magnetic fields focusing trajectories of the protons.
But in general, magnetic fields in interstellar space would have an influence at random, destroying any bright spot, says Hooper. "I can not imagine how it was created, and I do not know if anybody has any cool idea, "he says.
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Anybody know of a good place to use a telescope, near Orlando?
Recently got a new telescope and I'm excited to try it out. I live near Orlando airport though so anywhere near my house has a lot of light pollution. Does anyone know of a good place with 30 minutes of Orlando where I could go and try it? Looking for a safe and legal.
Good afternoon I have a couple of suggestions to go and test it in the safe and legal. my ideas are Christmas in the area, or even go to the beach and do it. that's something like doing so. I'ma male 44 years of age in the area of Orlando / Winter Park.
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