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Chinese scientists identify Milky Way origin for ultra-high energy cosmic rays

  • ‘First super cosmic ray accelerator identified, as of now’, according to an author of paper detailing the discovery
  • Previous theories have suggested that only rays with a lower energy originated within our own galaxy

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The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (Lhaaso) in Sichuan province, southwestern China. Photo: Getty Images
Victoria Bela
Scientists at an observatory in southwestern China say they have identified a super cosmic ray accelerator – a discovery that could fundamentally change understanding of the origin and source of cosmic rays in our galaxy.

The existence of a bubblelike structure – around 10 million times larger than our solar system – could explain how ultra-high energy gamma rays may have originated within the Milky Way, in contrast to previous theories about their origins, they said.

According to a paper published on Monday by the peer-reviewed Science Bulletin, the structure was observed in the Cygnus constellation by the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (Lhaaso) in Sichuan province.

Corresponding author Cao Zhen, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of High Energy Physics, told state news agency Xinhua that “this is the first super cosmic ray accelerator identified”.

Cosmic rays are charged particles that move through space at nearly the speed of light. Although they were discovered more than 100 years ago, scientists are still unsure of how the rays that reach Earth were formed and where they originated.

Previous energy spectra of cosmic rays showed an inflection point at around the energy level of 1 petaelectronvolt (PeV) – called the “knee” because of its shape in graphs.

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