6 APRIL 2021
A cosmic gamma ray detected zipping across the Milky Way has broken the record for the most energetic we ve found yet, clocking in at a whopping 957 trillion electronvolts (teraelectronvolts, or TeV).
This not only more than doubles the previous record, it brings us close to the range of petaelectronvolts (that s a quadrillion electronvolts) - finally confirming the existence of cosmic superaccelerators that can boost photons to these energies in the Milky Way.
Such a superaccelerator is called a PeVatron, and finding them could help us figure out what is producing the high-energy gamma rays streaking across the galaxy. This pioneering work opens a new window for the exploration of the extreme Universe, said physicist Jing Huang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in China. The observational evidence marks an important milestone toward revealing cosmic ray origins, which have puzzled mankind for more than one century.
Decades of hunting detects footprint of cosmic ray superaccelerators in our galaxy eurekalert.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurekalert.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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IMAGE: Gamma-ray image above 10 TeV around SNR G106.3+2.7 as seen by the Tibet ASgamma experiment. PSF shows smearing by the angular resolution. Black/cyan contours represent the SNR shell and the. view more
Credit: Image by IHEP
The Tibet ASgamma experiment, a China-Japan joint research project, has discovered gamma rays beyond 100 TeV (tera electron volts) from G106.3+2.7, a supernova remnant (SNR) 2600 lightyears from Earth.
These gamma rays are of the highest energy ever observed from SNRs, and are probably produced in collisions between cosmic rays (protons) accelerated in G106.3+2.7 and a nearby molecular cloud. SNR G106.3+2.7 is thus the first candidate object with sufficient evidence in the Milky Way that can accelerate cosmic rays (protons) up to 1 PeV (peta electron volts), said HUANG Jing, one of the leading researchers of the study from the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It will open an important
SOURCE / INSIGHT By Xinhua Published: Feb 26, 2021 09:03 PM
A researcher introduces the model of China? Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope during a science event in Beijing, China, in August 2020. Photo: IC
China s Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), the country s space science satellite also known as Insight, has found that a fast radio burst (FRB) signal detected last year came from a magnetar in the Milky Way, Chinese scientists announced recently.
The discovery marked a milestone in understanding the nature of the mysterious signal emanating from the universe, the scientists said.
The research was conducted jointly by scientists from the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing Normal University, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Tsinghua University and other institutions.
China s Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), the country s space science satellite also known as Insight, has found that a fast radio burst (FRB) signal detected last year came from a magnetar in the Milky Way, Chinese scientists announced Friday.
The discovery marked a milestone in understanding the nature of the mysterious signal emanating from the universe, the scientists said.
The research was conducted jointly by scientists from the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing Normal University, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Tsinghua University and other institutions. The findings have been published in the latest issue of Nature Astronomy.