what is cosmic rays
Answers
Answer:
A highly energetic nucleus or other particles travelling in space at a speed approaching the light
Explanation:
Showers of high energy particles occur when energetic cosmic rays strike the top of the Earth's atmosphere. Most cosmic rays are atomic nuclei: most are hydrogen nuclei, some are helium nuclei, and the rest heavier elements. Although many of the low energy cosmic rays come from our Sun, the origins of the highest energy cosmic rays remains unknown and a topic of much research.
Cosmic rays are atom fragments that rain down on the Earth from outside of the solar system. They blaze at the speed of light and have been blamed for electronics problems in satellites and other machinery.
Discovered in 1912, many things about cosmic rays remain a mystery more than a century later. One prime example is exactly where they are coming from. Most scientists suspect their origins are related to supernovas (star explosions), but the challenge is that for many years cosmic ray origins appeared uniform to observatories examining the entire sky.
A large leap forward in cosmic ray science came in 2017, when the Pierre Auger Observatory (which is spread over 3,000 square kilometers, or 1,160 square miles, in western Argentina) studied the arrival trajectories of 30,000 cosmic particles. It concluded that there is a difference in how frequently these cosmic rays arrive, depending on where you look. While their origins are still nebulous, knowing where to look is the first step in learning where they came from, the researchers said. The results were published in Science.
Cosmic rays can even be used for applications outside of astronomy. In November 2017, a research team discovered a possible void in the Great Pyramid of Giza, which was built around 2560 B.C., using cosmic rays. The researchers found this cavity using muon tomography, which examines cosmic rays and their penetrations through solid objects.