cosmic ray

cosmic ray, a high-speed particle—either an atomic nucleus or an electron—that travels through space. Most of these particles come from sources within the Milky Way Galaxy and are known as galactic cosmic rays (GCRs). The rest of the cosmic rays originate either from the Sun or, almost certainly in the case of the particles with the highest energies, outside the Milky Way Galaxy.

Arrival at Earth

Cosmic ray particles are not directly observed on the surface of Earth. This is because cosmic ray “primaries”—that is, the particles that arrive at the outer edge of Earth’s atmosphere—collide with atmospheric nuclei and give rise to “secondaries.” Some secondaries are fragments of the colliding nuclei, including neutrons, and others are short-lived particles created from the energy of the collisions. Secondary nuclei soon have their own collisions. It is the secondaries (neutrons and short-lived particles such as muons) that are observed at sea level. Primaries must be studied by using either high-altitude balloons or spacecraft.

Among the GCRs, the relative abundances of the different nuclei and electrons vary with energy. Above about 1 GeV per nucleon (gigaelectron volts, or one billion electron volts, per nucleon), the proportions are about 85 percent protons (nuclei of hydrogen atoms), with approximately 13 percent consisting of alpha particles (helium nuclei). (An energy of 1 GeV corresponds to speeds greater than about 87 percent of the speed of light.) The remaining 2 percent are electrons and nuclei of heavier atoms. At energies of several hundred MeV per nucleon (megaelectron volts, or one million electron volts, per nucleon), the corresponding figures are about 90, 9, and 1 percent.

Most of the GCRs detected near Earth have kinetic energies in excess of about 1 GeV per nucleon. The steady flux of these primaries at the top layer of the atmosphere is around 1,500 particles per square metre per second. The number of particles drops rapidly with increasing energy, but individual particles with energies as high as several times 10²⁰ eV have been detected. (This energy is comparable to that of a baseball thrown at 160 km [100 miles] per hour.)

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All About Astronomy

The trajectories of the lowest-energy cosmic ray primaries are strongly influenced by Earth’s magnetic field. Consequently, at energies below about 1 GeV per nucleon, at each geomagnetic latitude there is a cutoff energy below which primary GCRs are not detected. The flux of these low-energy particles is influenced by solar activity, and the amount of cosmic radiation reaching Earth is inversely correlated with the number of sunspots through the 11-year solar cycle. This inverse correlation is called the Forbush effect and occurs because, at maximum solar activity, stronger magnetic fields are carried out into interplanetary space by the solar wind, and these fields block the cosmic rays.

Origin of cosmic rays

Because of their deflection by magnetic fields in the Milky Way Galaxy, primary GCRs follow convoluted paths and arrive at the top of Earth’s atmosphere nearly uniformly from all directions. Consequently, cosmic ray sources cannot be identified from the direction of arrival but rather must be inferred from the elemental and isotopic abundances of those cosmic rays that are atomic nuclei. This can be attempted by comparing cosmic ray abundances with those deduced spectroscopically for stars and interstellar regions. The relative abundances of different elements among cosmic ray nuclei have been well studied for particles with energies from roughly 100 MeV to several tens of GeV per nucleon. Abundances have been measured for elements up to uranium. From such data it has been possible to reconstruct much of the history of the cosmic ray particles’ journeys through the Milky Way Galaxy. The light elements lithium, beryllium, and boron are rare throughout the universe but are surprisingly abundant among the primary GCRs. It is accepted that these light nuclei are produced when heavier primaries (e.g., carbon and oxygen) are fragmented during collisions with the thin interstellar gas composed mostly of hydrogen.

After appropriate corrections for the collisions of GCRs with interstellar gas, it is found that the inferred composition of the sources is similar to that of general solar-system matter; however, too little hydrogen and helium are present, and significant differences exist for isotopes of neon and iron. Those elements that preferentially form dust grains are found to have enhanced abundances. It is thought that the cosmic rays represent a mixture of material, with about 80 percent having solar-system composition and with about 20 percent of nuclei coming from massive evolved stars, such as Type II, or core-collapse, supernovas and Wolf-Rayet stars that are found in groups of young, hot stars called OB associations.

With an average life of 15 million years, GCRs must be replenished at an average power level of about 10⁴¹ ergs per second. Supernova explosions can supply this much power as they occur about every 50 years in the galaxy. Core-collapse supernovas, coming from OB stars, comprise about 85 percent of all galactic supernovas, and close to 90 percent of heavy GCRs are probably accelerated there. While it appears that particle acceleration can be accomplished by the expanding shock waves from supernovas, details of the processes involved in cosmic ray production and acceleration remain unclear.

The GCRs must have been traveling for about 15 million years to produce enough interstellar collisions to yield the observed number of light nuclei. The timescale for this travel is based in part on the observation of such radioactive fragments as beryllium-10. This radionuclide has a half-life of 1.5 million years, and the number of such particles that can survive to be detected on Earth depends on their total travel time.