cosmic particle

The particles’ huge energy must be created in an extremely powerful cosmic particle accelerator, and with an actively feeding big black hole several options are available.

Takaaki Kajita of Japan and Arthur McDonald of Canada won the Nobel Prize in physics for key discoveries about neutrinos, a cosmic particle that whizzes through space at nearly the speed of light, passing easily through Earth and even people’s bodies.

On these journeys the hazards from solar and cosmic particle radiation increases significantly from the environment of low Earth orbit, where the planetary magnetic field offers a modicum of protection.

“If you think about it, the universe is sort of a cosmic particle collider, with neutron stars as the particles,” O’Shaughnessy says.

Astronomers also discovered that two of the most powerful phenomena in the Universe have combined to create what is called a ‘stupendous cosmic particle accelerator’.