Godlike Productions - Discussion Forum
Users Online Now: 2,215 (Who's On?)Visitors Today: 664,302
Pageviews Today: 1,160,489Threads Today: 487Posts Today: 8,216
01:54 PM


Rate this Thread

Absolute BS Crap Reasonable Nice Amazing
 

What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!

 
Xenus
User ID: 648970
Australia
04/06/2009 06:09 PM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
NASA confirms the anomaly;

[link to www.nasa.gov]

WASHINGTON -- Scientists announced Wednesday the discovery of a previously unidentified nearby source of high-energy cosmic rays. The finding was made with a NASA-funded balloon-borne instrument high over Antarctica.

Researchers from the Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) collaboration, led by scientists at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, published the results in the Nov. 20 issue of the journal Nature. The new results show an unexpected surplus of cosmic ray electrons at very high energy -- 300-800 billion electron volts -- that must come from a previously unidentified source or from the annihilation of very exotic theoretical particles used to explain dark matter.

"This electron excess cannot be explained by the standard model of cosmic ray origin," said John P. Wefel, ATIC project principal investigator and a professor at Louisiana State. "There must be another source relatively near us that is producing these additional particles."

According to the research, this source would need to be within about 3,000 light years of the sun. It could be an exotic object such as a pulsar, mini-quasar, supernova remnant or an intermediate mass black hole.

"Cosmic ray electrons lose energy during their journey through the galaxy," said Jim Adams, ATIC research lead at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "These losses increase with the energy of the electrons. At the energies measured by our instrument, these energy losses suppress the flow of particles from distant sources, which helps nearby sources stand out."

The scientists point out, however, that there are few such objects close to our solar system.

"These results may be the first indication of a very interesting object near our solar system waiting to be studied by other instruments," Wefel said.

An alternative explanation is that the surplus of high energy electrons might result from the annihilation of very exotic particles put forward to explain dark matter. In recent decades, scientists have learned that the kind of material making up the universe around us only accounts for about five percent of its mass composition. Close to 70 percent of the universe is composed of dark energy (so called because its nature is unknown). The remaining 25 percent of the mass acts gravitationally just like regular matter, but does little else, so it is normally not visible.

The nature of dark matter is not understood, but several theories that describe how gravity works at very small, quantum distances predict exotic particles that could be good dark matter candidates.

"The annihilation of these exotic particles with each other would produce normal particles such as electrons, positrons, protons and antiprotons that can be observed by scientists," said Eun-Suk Seo, ATIC lead at the University of Maryland, College Park.

The 4,300-pound ATIC experiment was designed to be carried to an altitude of about 124,000 feet above Antarctica using a helium-filled balloon about as large as the interior of the New Orleans Superdome. The goal was to study cosmic rays that otherwise would be absorbed into the atmosphere.

ATIC is an international collaboration of researchers from Louisiana State University, the University of Maryland, Marshall Space Flight Center, Purple Mountain Observatory in China, Moscow State University in Russia and the Max-Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany. ATIC is supported in the United States by NASA and flights are conducted under the auspices of the Balloon Program Office at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia by the staff of the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility. Antarctic logistics are provided by the National Science Foundation.

For information on NASA's scientific balloon program, visit:

[link to sites.wff.nasa.gov]

This is looking for and more likely as the cause of all the density spikes lately as seen throughout this thread
Thread: Holy Shit! LOOK at the Magnetosphere!! (Page 52)

So just WTF is this thing?
Xenus (OP)
User ID: 648970
Australia
04/06/2009 06:10 PM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
Website of the project which made the discovery with a lot more information.

[link to atic.phys.lsu.edu]
Xenus (OP)
User ID: 648970
Australia
04/06/2009 06:35 PM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
Cosmic rays linked to cloudy days

"Giles Harrison and David Stephenson from the University of Reading, UK, examined 50 years of solar radiation measurements from sites all over the country, enabling them to calculate daily changes in cloudiness. By comparing this data with neutron counts - a measure of cosmic ray activity - for the same period, the scientists have shown an unambiguous link between cosmic rays and clouds (Proceedings of the Royal Society A, DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2005.1628)."

More (not much) at - [link to www.newscientist.com]

ScienceDaily (Jan. 24, 2009) — Cosmic-rays detected half a mile underground in a disused U.S. iron-mine can be used to detect major weather events occurring 20 miles up in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, a new study has revealed.

Published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and led by scientists from the UK’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), this remarkable study shows how the number of high-energy cosmic-rays reaching a detector deep underground, closely matches temperature measurements in the upper atmosphere (known as the stratosphere). For the first time, scientists have shown how this relationship can be used to identify weather events that occur very suddenly in the stratosphere during the Northern Hemisphere winter. These events can have a significant effect on the severity of winters we experience, and also on the amount of ozone over the poles - being able to identify them and understand their frequency is crucial for informing our current climate and weather-forecasting models to improve predictions.

[link to www.sciencedaily.com]

Earth's recent warming trend might in part be due to a lack of starlight reaching our planet, a new study suggests. But other scientists are not so sure.

According to a theory proposed a decade ago, when a star explodes far away in the Milky Way, cosmic rays--high-speed atomic particles--go through the Earth's atmosphere and produce ions and free electrons.

The released electrons act as catalysts and accelerate the formation of small clusters of sulfuric acid and water molecules, the building blocks of clouds. Therefore, cosmic rays would increase cloud cover on Earth, reflecting sunlight and keeping the planet relatively cool.

However, because the Sun's magnetic field--which shields the Earth from these rays--doubled in intensity during the last century, there has been a reduction in cloudiness, a possible contributor to Earth's warming.

Scientists at the Danish National Space Center mimicked chemistry of the lower atmosphere in a large reaction chamber. They created a mixture that contained gasses at realistic concentrations and used an ultraviolet lamp to act as the Sun.

Microscopic droplets, precursor to clouds, started floating in the air of the reaction chamber.

"We were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons do their work of creating the building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei," said team leader Henrik Svensmark, Director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish National Space Center. "This is a completely new result within climate science."

The results however, may not transfer to natural conditions outside the controlled laboratory environment.

"Studies that have evaluated the claims that global cloud cover is related to changes in cosmic rays find that if you re-examine this matter outside of the brief period which they used, the relationship falls apart," said Raymond Bradley director of the Climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts. Bradley was not involved with the study.

The researchers agree that further study is needed to estimate the contribution of this mechanism to the recent warming of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans.

This work does not mean that there is no human influence on climate, Svensmark told LiveScience. "But it might be necessary to revaluate the climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide."

[link to www.space.com]

Now that we're in a solar DEEP minimum, we have a shitload more cosmic rays reaching our atmosphere!
Xenus (OP)
User ID: 648970
Australia
04/06/2009 07:11 PM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
So, what is this object that is causing the recent surge in cosmic ray activity lately? Black holes, quasars, supernpova remnants are all by products of a dead star. If we can find all of those millions of light years away why haven't we found something that is supposed to be closer than 3,000 light years? The NASA article suggests it's right outside our solar system.

So many satellites and telescopes and we haven't found this thing yet? Unless of course it is a new type of object we have never encountered before.
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/09/2009 05:11 PM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
Scientists pinpoint the 'edge of space'

Where does space begin? Scientists at the University of Calgary have created a new instrument that is able to track the transition between the relatively gentle winds of Earth's atmosphere and the more violent flows of charged particles in space - flows that can reach speeds well over 1000 km/hr. And they have accomplished this in unprecedented detail.


Data received from the U of C-designed instrument sent to space on a NASA launch from Alaska about two years ago was able to help pinpoint the so-called edge of space: the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space.

With that data, U of C scientists confirmed that space begins 118 km above Earth and the results were published this week in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

The instrument - called the Supra-Thermal Ion Imager - was carried by the JOULE-II rocket on Jan. 19, 2007. It travelled to an altitude of about 200 kilometers above sea level and collected data for the five minutes it was moving through the "edge of space."

The Canadian Space Agency invested $422,000 in the development of the Supra-Thermal Ion Imager instrument on JOULE-II.

The ability to gather data in that area is significant because it's very difficult to make measurements in this region, which is too high for balloons and too low for satellites.

"It's only the second time that direct measurements of charged particle flows have been made in this region, and the first time all the ingredients - such as the upper atmospheric winds - have been included," says David Knudsen, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Calgary.

Knudsen and his former PhD student Laureline Sangalli are the lead authors of the paper. Co-authors include: JOULE-II lead scientist Miguel Larsen of Clemson University, Robert Pfaff and Douglas Rowland of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and T. Zhan of Conseco Inc.

"When you drag a heavy object over a surface, the interface becomes hot. In JOULE-II we were able to measure directly two regions being dragged past each other, one being the ionosphere -- being driven by flows in space -- and the other the earth's atmosphere," says Knudsen, who also is the head of the Space Physics Division of the Institute for Space Imaging Sciences (ISIS). The institute is a research partnership between the University of Calgary and University of Lethbridge.

The measurements confirmed what other scientists consider the boundary or edge of space.

"The results have given us a closer look at space, which is a benefit to pure research in space science," Knudsen says. "But it also allows us to calculate energy flows into the Earth's atmosphere that ultimately may be able to help us understand the interaction between space and our environment. That could mean a greater understanding of the link between sunspots and the warming and cooling of the Earth's climate as well as how space weather impacts satellites, communications, navigation, and power systems."

The U of C-designed instrument has been adopted by COM DEV, an Ontario-based global designer and manufacturer of space hardware, and is being used as a prototype for three instruments currently being readied to fly on the European Space Agency's "Swarm" satellite mission, set to launch late next year and to collect data for four years. The JOULE-II instrument is one in a long list of more than a dozen instruments designed by U of C scientists in the past forty years which have flown in space. There are at least five more being readied to go on missions in the next two years.

"Understanding the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space is fundamental to the bigger picture of the effects of space on the Earth's climate and environment," says Russ Taylor, the director of ISIS and head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the U of C. "This detection is part of a long history of success by ISIS researchers in designing and building innovative instruments flown on rockets and satellites to image the flow of matter and energy between the Earth and Space."

More information: The paper "Rocket-based measurements of ion velocity, neutral wind, and electric field in the collisional transition region of the auroral ionosphere" was published this week in the Journal of Geophysical Research. It can be found on-line at [link to www.agu.org]

[link to www.physorg.com]
Treasure Bound

User ID: 609579
United States
04/09/2009 05:15 PM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
NASA confirms the anomaly;

[link to www.nasa.gov]

According to the research, this source would need to be within about 3,000 light years of the sun. It could be an exotic object such as a pulsar, mini-quasar, supernova remnant or an intermediate mass black hole.


"These results may be the first indication of a very interesting object near our solar system waiting to be studied by other instruments," Wefel said.
 Quoting: Xenus 648970

WTF??????

angry chic
"We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children"--Native-American proverb

People were created to be loved while things were created to be used. The reason the world is in chaos is that, things are being loved and people are being used

:Treasures122:

In Solidarity with Janey
[link to i25.photobucket.com]
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 653549
United States
04/09/2009 05:17 PM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
My guess would be that the solar system gamma ray burst headlights to disperse the interstellar fog weren't powerful enough so now they're bringing out the big guns to ionize those pesky neutral molecules that are boring a holes through our ozone like swiss cheese.
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 653772
United Kingdom
04/09/2009 05:19 PM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
So, what is this object that is causing the recent surge in cosmic ray activity lately? Black holes, quasars, supernpova remnants are all by products of a dead star. If we can find all of those millions of light years away why haven't we found something that is supposed to be closer than 3,000 light years? The NASA article suggests it's right outside our solar system.

So many satellites and telescopes and we haven't found this thing yet? Unless of course it is a new type of object we have never encountered before.
 Quoting: Xenus 648970

its the man of aquarius tipping his bucket all over earth
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/09/2009 05:32 PM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
What if it is some sort of black hole or wormhole?? Just outside our solar system is within our reach, could this also be the force responsible for the voyager anomaly?
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/09/2009 05:42 PM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
Who knows what this thing is.. I would want to know wtf this thing was and the fact that this object could be responsible for a lot of the weather events here because of all the energetic particles in our atmosphere... and no one seems to realise this 1doh1
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 601400
United States
04/09/2009 05:44 PM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
I think this deserves a pin
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/09/2009 05:59 PM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
No one cares it seems... I tried but everyone is too busy chasing beliefs and ignoring fact when presented.
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/10/2009 05:56 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
bump
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/11/2009 09:34 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
You'd think this would draw more of a discussion on a forum like this instead of all the politics and shit...
Darza

User ID: 378572
Netherlands
04/11/2009 09:51 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
It is unknown territory. Maybe that explains the lack of interest?
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/11/2009 10:03 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
What goes on in space has been shown time and time again to have weather effects here on Earth... I can sit here all day and show article after article and yet people still fail to realise our current view on the weather is limited... I don't know about anyone else but I would like to know what effects these rays have on us and Earth, other than the ones we've observed so far (if any). Not to mention all the excess particles in our atmosphere from space bursts and other anomalies such as the one near our solar system. Whatever it is, that in itself is a mystery worth solving.

Isn't that the purpose of asking questions? Not asking the same questions over and over until you hear the answer you want.
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/14/2009 02:01 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
This is a major mystery for anyone who has ANY interest in astrophysics or anything space related. We're a step closer to solving this.

"FOR more than a decade, physicists in Japan have been seeing cosmic rays that should not exist. Cosmic rays are particles - mostly protons but sometimes heavy atomic nuclei - that travel through the universe at close to the speed of light. Some cosmic rays detected on Earth are produced in violent events such as supernovae, but we still don't know the origins of the highest-energy particles, which are the most energetic particles ever seen in nature. But that's not the real mystery.

As cosmic-ray particles travel through space, they lose energy in collisions with the low-energy photons that pervade the universe, such as those of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Einstein's special theory of relativity dictates that any cosmic rays reaching Earth from a source outside our galaxy will have suffered so many energy-shedding collisions that their maximum possible energy is 5 × 1019 electronvolts. This is known as the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit.

Over the past decade, however, the University of Tokyo's Akeno Giant Air Shower Array - 111 particle detectors spread out over 100 square kilometres - has detected several cosmic rays above the GZK limit. In theory, they can only have come from within our galaxy, avoiding an energy-sapping journey across the cosmos. However, astronomers can find no source for these cosmic rays in our galaxy. So what is going on?

One possibility is that there is something wrong with the Akeno results. Another is that Einstein was wrong. His special theory of relativity says that space is the same in all directions, but what if particles found it easier to move in certain directions? Then the cosmic rays could retain more of their energy, allowing them to beat the GZK limit."

[link to www.newscientist.com]

I had thought that we already knew the causes of cosmic rays by reading stuff from NASA articles, the way they write it is sneaky. But the finding clearly shows something is out there and emitting cosmic rays. Notice they said "Scientists announced Wednesday the discovery of a previously unidentified nearby source of high-energy cosmic rays." yet don't actually say anything about the object?

The cause of the cosmic rays is still unknown but it's just outside our solar system?! This seems really bizarre, when you have the most energetic particles hitting us from somewhere close, one would think we would have found such an object already. Apparently not. So once again I have to ask, what kind of object is this, where is it and how could we have not have seen it by now??
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 653924
United States
04/14/2009 02:05 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
bump
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 655282
United States
04/14/2009 02:19 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
Nibiru
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/14/2009 02:37 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
The maximum distance proposed for the energies is 3000 light years.

"Cosmic rays are subatomic particles streaming through space at almost the speed of light. They are actually different kinds of particles, including protons and helium nuclei (two protons and two neutrons bound together). Their exact speed determines how much energy they have; a faster particle is said to have higher energy (or conversely a higher energy particle is moving more quickly).

Many cosmic ray sources have been identified. Most appear to get their start in the expanding debris of a violent supernova explosion. Shock waves rip to and fro in the material, and particles trapped in the gas can be accelerated to phenomenal velocities.

But there’s a problem: the higher the energy of the cosmic ray, the more its travel through the galaxy wears it down. A relatively slow-moving cosmic ray has no difficulty traveling millions of light years (coming, for example, from supermassive black holes in the centers of other galaxies), but the faster they move, the more they are at the mercy of forces like the intergalactic magnetic field. Extremely high-energy cosmic rays can’t travel very far before having their energy sapped away.

However, a new study using the balloon-borne instrument called the Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) shows that there is an excess of particles coming in with energies of 300-800 billion electron Volts. To give you an idea of the energy involved, a photon of visible light has an energy of 1 eV. So these puppies are screaming in with billions of times the energy of light we can see (note that light is not a subatomic particle; this is just to give you an idea of the energy). In fact this is thousands of times the energy of even X-rays.

Cosmic rays at this energy should slow down so much that the source of these particles can’t be more than 3000 or so light years away. That’s pretty close, on a galactic scale (the Milky Way is 100,000 light years across). Whatever the power source for these particles is — a pulsar, a black hole, or something more exotic — it’s practically in our back yard.

Anything that close capable of producing such prodigiously propelled particles should, I would think, be relatively easy to find. I have not heard of anything that close, however. The scientists who conducted the study therefore have an alternative idea: dark matter. One possible candidate for this mysterious matter that fills the Universe is a type of particle that, if it collides with another dark matter particle, can produce cosmic rays in this energy range. That’s still speculative, but it’s awfully interesting. Since dark matter permeates space, the cosmic rays could be coming from pretty close by; even inside the solar system!

That’s pretty weird to think about.

It’s too early to speculate much about them. ATIC only detected the particles, but is not sensitive to direction. If a detector were used that could see where these cosmic rays were coming from, that would give a big clue to their origin. If they all come from one spot in space, for example, then we know it’s probably a black hole or pulsar. But if they come from everywhere, well, wouldn’t that be interesting?"

November 19th, 2008 4:21 PM by Phil Plait in Astronomy, Cool stuff, Science

[link to blogs.discovermagazine.com]

Even Mr. Plait from BA wrote about this.

And given the fact that enough rads from x-rays can harm or kill us, what about these particles with the kind of energies they have? At the very least if anyone gets hit with these particles, surely there would be damaging to us on a genetic level, like cancer?

Last Edited by Xenus on 04/14/2009 02:38 AM
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 636645
United States
04/14/2009 02:50 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
I think this qualifies as near concrete proof that a blackhole is moving towards the solar system and that things will get interesting in 2012
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/14/2009 03:06 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
Given the link between cosmic rays and weather... you could assume that the more frequently these events are happening, the extreme/wild/record breaking weather, the closer this object is coming. By now everyone who isn't completely brain dead has realised we're getting a lot more of these events. But because we have no idea where these particles are coming from, even the direction, we can't even say how far away or where this object is for now. I know that all dead stars which go on to become exotic object emit some form of cosmic rays, black holes have been linked to the highest of energy particles though.

[link to www.auger.org]
Auger Observatory closes in on long standing mystery, links highest-energy cosmic rays with violent black holes.

Scientists of the Pierre Auger Collaboration announced today (8 Nov. 2007) that active galactic nuclei are the most likely candidate for the source of the highest-energy cosmic rays that hit Earth. Using the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, the largest cosmic-ray observatory in the world, a team of scientists from 17 countries found that the sources of the highest-energy particles are not distributed uniformly across the sky. Instead, the Auger results link the origins of these mysterious particles to the locations of nearby galaxies that have active nuclei in their centers. The results appear in the Nov. 9 issue of the journal Science.

Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are thought to be powered by supermassive black holes that are devouring large amounts of matter. They have long been considered sites where high-energy particle production might take place. They swallow gas, dust and other matter from their host galaxies and spew out particles and energy. While most galaxies have black holes at their center, only a fraction of all galaxies have an AGN. The exact mechanism of how AGNs can accelerate particles to energies 100 million times higher than the most powerful particle accelerator on Earth is still a mystery.


Milky Way’s Giant Black Hole Awoke from Slumber 300 Years Ago.

The finding helps resolve a long-standing mystery: why is the Milky Way’s black hole so quiescent? The black hole, known as Sagittarius A* (pronounced "A-star"), is a certified monster, containing about 4 million times the mass of our Sun. Yet the energy radiated from its surroundings is billions of times weaker than the radiation emitted from central black holes in other galaxies.

"We have wondered why the Milky Way’s black hole appears to be a slumbering giant," says team leader Tatsuya Inui of Kyoto University in Japan. "But now we realize that the black hole was far more active in the past. Perhaps it’s just resting after a major outburst."

The new study, which will appear in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, combines results from Japan’s Suzaku and ASCA X-ray satellites, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory.

The observations, collected between 1994 and 2005, revealed that clouds of gas near the central black hole brightened and faded quickly in X-ray light as they responded to X-ray pulses emanating from just outside the black hole. When gas spirals inward toward the black hole, it heats up to millions of degrees and emits X-rays. As more and more matter piles up near the black hole, the greater the X-ray output.

These X-ray pulses take 300 years to traverse the distance between the central black hole and a large cloud known as Sagittarius B2, so the cloud responds to events that occurred 300 years earlier. When the X-rays reach the cloud, they collide with iron atoms, kicking out electrons that are close to the atomic nucleus. When electrons from farther out fill in these gaps, the iron atoms emit X-rays. But after the X-ray pulse passes through, the cloud fades to its normal brightness.

Amazingly, a region in Sagittarius B2 only 10 light-years across varied considerably in brightness in just 5 years. These brightenings are known as light echoes. By resolving the X-ray spectral line from iron, Suzaku’s observations were crucial for eliminating the possibility that subatomic particles caused the light echoes.

"By observing how this cloud lit up and faded over 10 years, we could trace back the black hole’s activity 300 years ago," says team member Katsuji Koyama of Kyoto University. "The black hole was a million times brighter three centuries ago. It must have unleashed an incredibly powerful flare."

This new study builds upon research by several groups who pioneered the light-echo technique. Last year, a team led by Michael Muno, who now works at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., used Chandra observations of X-ray light echoes to show that Sagittarius A* generated a powerful burst of X-rays about 50 years ago -- about a dozen years before astronomers had satellites that could detect X-rays from outer space. "The outburst three centuries ago was 10 times brighter than the one we detected," says Muno.

The galactic center is about 26,000 light-years from Earth, meaning we see events as they occurred 26,000 years ago. Astronomers still lack a detailed understanding of why Sagittarius A* varies so much in its activity. One possibility, says Koyama, is that a supernova a few centuries ago plowed up gas and swept it into the black hole, leading to a temporary feeding frenzy that awoke the black hole from its slumber and produced the giant flare.

Launched in 2005, Suzaku is the fifth in a series of Japanese satellites devoted to studying celestial X-ray sources and is managed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). This mission is a collaborative effort between Japanese universities and institutions and NASA Goddard.

Can't be our super massive black hole. It's sleeping.

Forgot link to article;
[link to chandra.harvard.edu]

Last Edited by Xenus on 04/14/2009 03:07 AM
Xtina
User ID: 656411
United States
04/14/2009 03:12 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
I know there are people on this site who think this is bogus, but I do think there is a planetary body nearby that is throwing everything off. I believe it is responsible for the anomalous behavior of the sun, Venus and the weather, tectonic plate movements and volcanism of recent years. I don't know if it is something as exotic as a black hole or something - I would think more likely an unanticipated planet coming near. I'm not saying it is Niburu or whatever, it is just something out there that is throwing off the works.

Whatever it is is affecting the sun, but boy, when it lets go, look the fuck out! It's going to be crazy out there, really affecting the satellites and the weather. I'm more scared of that than what we are experiencing now.
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/14/2009 03:29 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
The planet x crowd have always been saying that the weather events of late are linked to planet x, but planets don't emit the highest energy cosmic rays. Here I have presented some evidence of a link between weather and cosmic rays, a link which has been proposed for many years by many scientists in many published papers. There is much more out there if you require further evidence, a few mins using a search engine or a deep web search would show you how much else there is. Not just the highest energy ones, but all cosmic rays reaching our atmosphere.

And then there is this object somewhere in our backyard which is emitting the highest energy particles in nature... If there is a link between the energies of the particles and the severity of the weather events then perhaps this object was to blame alone for the events. We simply don't know that yet.

Don't forget that we're also seeing more cosmic rays now because of the solar DEEP minimum, we have barely any protection from Sol to keep these rays out right now compared to when it's in maximum.
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 611750
Netherlands
04/14/2009 03:49 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
Nibiru
 Quoting: NightWisp


If nibiru is 3000 lightyears away we won't have much to worry about.
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/14/2009 04:05 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
3000 light years is only the maximum distance possible for the energies of these rays. I'm not sure how they got the figure but they measure the energy as it hits our detectors and then calculate based on the energies the distance it travelled. This of course is only based on our understanding of these energies, which is not much to begin with. This is done with the detectors we have on earth. All they have from the balloon experiment is that we're experiencing higher energies from cosmic rays than they thought we would given their models and theories.

How can they tell the difference between a high energy ray from far away and a low energy ray from very close? They assume it is a high energy ray because the amount of energy it has as detected by us, is too high to come from a KNOWN source. The closest known source of cosmic rays is 6000 light years away. So either we have a source that is very close and emitting fairly high energy particles or a source that is even closer and emitting less energetic particles but which are still higher than the known sources as they reach us.

Either way, we're still getting hit pretty frequently by these bursts and it's causing havoc already.
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/14/2009 04:20 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
Each time we get hit by a major burst we always get floodings in the northen part of Australia. I started noticing the correlation at the start of the year, and now it's no longer just speculation on my part, I have seen and read enough to convince me of the links between cloud formation, rain and cosmic rays. Who knows what else they're linked with, but weather is one major thing for us.
Xenus  (OP)

User ID: 648970
Australia
04/14/2009 05:14 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
People are viewing this information and no one is commenting or adding to the thread, why is that? Is the truth really that ugly? I thought the majority of the people are here for truth, yet when faced with truths they run and hide like ACs.
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 653876
United Kingdom
04/14/2009 05:23 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
Nibiru
 Quoting: NightWisp



well i'm sure we are all thinking it, but it seems somewhat taboo to say it.

i guess we wont know till its upon us.
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 653876
United Kingdom
04/14/2009 05:24 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
People are viewing this information and no one is commenting or adding to the thread, why is that? Is the truth really that ugly? I thought the majority of the people are here for truth, yet when faced with truths they run and hide like ACs.
 Quoting: Xenus



i think all the shills are still asleep.

as for anyone else, i guess its too scary to admit?
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 653876
United Kingdom
04/14/2009 05:25 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: What is the source of all these Cosmic Ray spikes/anomalies lately? NASA answers but with more questions!
hey......



..... i'm an AC!





GLP