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Cosmic Radiation Possible in Our Galaxy
By Heather Sparks
Staff Writer
posted: 09:00 am ET
12 November 2001
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cosmic_ray_011112 The Milky Way galaxy is now thought to contain the ingredients necessary to produce one of the most powerful energies in the universe, cosmic radiation. The radiation is so powerful it is thought by a few scientists to be responsible for some of Earth's great mass extinctions, but has only been thought to originate outside the Milky Way. Now, researchers from Russia, England and Poland reveal in the online New Journal of Physics that this radiation can just as likely come from events inside our galaxy. Radiation, whether it's microwaves or X-rays, is made of particles heated up to the point that they move and vibrate at super high speeds. Most radiation on Earth comes from sources inside the Milky Way, like the Sun and our stars, but it was thought that super-energetic radiation came from very rare exotic sources like decaying dark-matter and the more common gamma ray bursts outside our galaxy. The list of sources for these super-charged particles may soon expand, thanks to the advanced computer modeling and the team of scientists led by Sir Arnold Wolfendale of Durham University in the UK. Their modeling found that the high-energy particles of cosmic rays could come from more common galactic events like hypernovae -- extremely large exploding stars -- and pulsars, which are collapsed rotating stars. Luckily for everyone and everything, there hasn't been such an event in our galactic neighborhood -- yet. The researchers have concluded that only by chance have gamma ray bursts, hypernovae or powerful pulsars not "gone off" inside the Milky Way. If one did light up, life on Earth would probably never be the same. Past research has speculated that intergalactic sources of high-energy radiation could be strong enough to burn the atmosphere, heat the oceans, and cause extinction in most every animal and plant kingdom on Earth. "It is important and interesting to know where the sources of these high energy particles come from because many of the atoms in our bodies and in the world around us were produced in the fiery furnaces of supernovae," said Sir Arnold. More Information on Deep Space: Astronomy News by TopicThis Week in Science & Astronomy: News Briefs
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