Cosmic Rays Cosmic rays are high-energy particles arriving from space; some have energies far beyond those that human-made particle accelerators can achieve. The sources of higher-energy cosmic rays remain under… Click to show full abstract
Cosmic Rays Cosmic rays are high-energy particles arriving from space; some have energies far beyond those that human-made particle accelerators can achieve. The sources of higher-energy cosmic rays remain under debate, although we know that lower-energy cosmic rays come from the solar wind. The Pierre Auger Collaboration reports the observation of thousands of cosmic rays with ultrahigh energies of several exa–electron volts (about a Joule per particle), arriving in a slightly dipolar distribution (see the Perspective by Gallagher and Halzen). The direction of the rays indicates that the particles originated in other galaxies and not from nearby sources within our own Milky Way Galaxy. Science , this issue p. [1266][1]; see also p. [1240][2] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aan4338 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aao5651
               
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