Our planet is frequently bombarded by high-energy particles from the sun, called cosmic rays. But recently scientists detected one of the most powerful cosmic rays ever recorded, and there was something very strange about it – it didn't come from the sun, and there's nothing known in our galaxy that has the power to produce it.
The researchers detected the particle with an energy of 240 exa-electron volts, which is millions of times more powerful than anything that can be created in a particle accelerator. The only similar event is an observation in 1991 which was named the Oh-My-God particle. The new results are presented in a paper in the journal Science.
"The particles are so high energy, they shouldn't be affected by galactic and extra-galactic magnetic fields. You should be able to point to where they come from in the sky," one of the researchers, John Matthews, said.
"But in the case of the Oh-My-God particle and this new particle, you trace its trajectory to its source and there's nothing high energy enough to have produced it. That's the mystery of this – what the heck is going on?"
