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Cosmic Rays
March 13th, 2008 · No Comments
Cosmic Rays
Cosmic rays are mainly composed of bare nuclei, roughly 87% protons, 12% alpha particles and most of the rest being made up of heavier atomic nuclei with relative abundance comparable to those found in the Sun. In astrophysics, cosmic rays are radiation consisting of energetic particles originating beyond the Earth that impinge on the Earth’s atmosphere.
Electrons, gamma rays, and very high-energy neutrinos also make up a much smaller fraction of the cosmic radiation. The kinetic energies of cosmic ray particles span over fourteen orders of magnitude, with the flux of cosmic rays on the Earth’s surface falling approximately as the inverse-cube of the energy.
Cosmic rays originate from energetic processes on the Sun all the way to the farthest reaches of the visible universe. The wide variety of particle energies reflects the wide variety of sources. Cosmic rays can have energies up to 1020 eV.
Detection
The nuclei which make the cosmic rays are able to travel from their distant sources to the Earth because of the low density of matter in space. Nuclei and matter interact strongly with each other therefore when the cosmic rays approach Earth they begin to collide with the nuclei of atmospheric gases. These collisions results in the production of many pions and kaons, which quickly decay into muons,as they do not interact strongly with the atmosphere and with effect of time dilation many of these muons are able to reach the surface of the Earth. Muons are ionizing radiation, and easily detected by many types of particle detectors such as scintillation detectors.
Types of cosmic radiation
Anomalous cosmic rays
Galactic cosmic rays
Solar cosmic rays
Ultra-high energy cosmic rays
Time Dependence
Recent research has, however, produced evidence for 1.5 to 2-fold century-timescale changes in the cosmic ray flux in the past ten thousand years. In the past, it was believed that the cosmic ray flux has remained fairly constant over time. In fact, this is one of the fundamental assumptions behind radiocarbon dating.
Cosmic rays and fiction
In fiction, cosmic rays have been used as a catchall, mostly in comics, as a source for mutation and therefore the powers gained by being bombarded with them. Because of the metaphysical connotations these particles enables their misinterpretation by the public, giving them an aura of mysterious powers. Were they merely referred to as “high-speed protons and atomic nuclei” this might not be so.
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