Today in History: 2021 Most powerful cosmic ray since the Oh-My-God particle detected by Osaka University from Utah’s Array Telescope measuring 240 exa-electronvolts (EeV; 1018 electronvolts) - nicknamed ‘Amaterasu’
Researchers have detected one of the most powerful cosmic rays ever seen slamming into Earth — but they have no idea what caused it or where it came from. The extremely energetic particle, which has been named after a Japanese goddess, arrived from the direction of a void in the universe where almost nothing is known to exist, according to new research.
Cosmic rays are highly energetic particles, mainly consisting of protons or helium nuclei, that are constantly raining through every square inch of the universe (including our bodies). But a small subsection of cosmic rays, which hit Earth roughly once per square mile every year, are accelerated to even greater energy levels by some of the universe’s most intense phenomena.
These extra-energetic particles, known as “ultra-high-energy cosmic rays,” have at least one exa-electron volt (EeV), or 1 quintillion (1 followed by 18 zeros) electron volts, of energy, which is around a million times more energetic than the fastest particles from human-made particle accelerators.
On May 21, 2021, researchers detected one of these supercharged cosmic rays with the Telescope Array project — a detector made of individual substations covering more than 270 square miles (700 square kilometers) in Utah. This particular particle had a whopping 244 EeV of energy, which makes it the most energetic cosmic ray since the “Oh My God” (OMG) particle in 1991 — the most powerful cosmic ray ever detected, which had an energy of 320 EeV and traveled at more than 99.9% the speed of light.
Researchers from Osaka Metropolitan University (OMU) described the recent cosmic ray in a new study that will be published in the journal Science on Nov. 24. They named the mysterious particle “Amaterasu” after the sun goddess from the Shinto religion who is believed to have helped create Japan.
“When I first discovered this ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic ray, I thought there must have been a mistake, as it showed an energy level unprecedented in the last 3 decades,” study lead author Toshihiro Fujii, an astrophysicist at OMU, said in a statement.
The scientists are unsure exactly where the UHE ray came from. “Its arrival direction points back to a void in the large-scale structure of the Universe,” the researchers wrote in Science. This region has no known galaxies, nebulas or other cosmic structures.
It is possible that the cosmic ray originated somewhere else and was deflected toward us by magnetic fields surrounding a star or other massive object. However, UHE cosmic rays are less likely to be deflected than less-energetic counterparts, the researchers wrote.
It is also unclear what could have produced such a powerful cosmic ray. The researchers have suggested several possible sources, including supernova explosions, black hole mergers and pulsars.
But the particle could also come from an “unknown astronomical phenomena and novel physical origins beyond the Standard Model [of physics],” Fujii said.
Researchers are also still unsure what caused the OMG particle in 1991.
The team hopes that next-generation observatories will be able to trace the origins of these UHE particles and help reveal what causes them.
Read more here: Earth slammed by ultra-powerful ‘goddess particle’ cosmic ray, and we have no idea where it came from | Live Science
Also on this day:
1382 Earthquake centered on Dover Straits with estimated magnitude of 6.0 causes widespread damage, including to Canterbury Cathedral
1792 Mount Unzen on Japan’s Shimabara Peninsula, erupts creating a tsunami, killing about 15,000; Japan’s deadliest volcanic eruption
1799 Napoleon and his forces abandon their siege of Acre after two months - turning point in French invasion of Egypt and Syria
1881 American Red Cross founded by Clara Barton
1904 Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) forms in Paris
1927 Aviator Charles Lindbergh, in the Spirit of St Louis, lands in Paris after the first solo air crossing of Atlantic
1932 After flying for 17 hours from Newfoundland, Amelia Earhart lands near Londonderry, Northern Ireland, completing the first transatlantic solo flight by a woman
1944 WWII: West Loch Disaster - explosion during munition loading kills at least 160 sailors, injures nearly 400, destroys six ships and damages 3 piers and several buildings at Pearl Harbor U.S. Naval Base in Oahu, Hawaii; details were kept classified until the early 1960s
1946 Physicist Louis Slotin is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation while preparing a plutonium core experiment at the Los Alamos lab, he dies 9 days later and the accident ends all hands-on nuclear assembly work at Los Alamos
1980 “Star Wars Episode V - Empire Strikes Back”, produced by George Lucas opens in cinemas in UK and North America
1981 Reggae musician Bob Marley receives a Jamaican state funeral
1982 British troops land on Falkland Islands, in the South Atlantic, to repel Argentine military invasion
1991 Former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, is assassinated
2007 Cutty Sark, the last surviving tea clipper, is badly damaged by fire in Greenwich, England.
2024 French Post Office La Poste issues a scratch-and-sniff stamp that smells of bread, to celebrate the baguette
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1985 Mark Cavendish - British road cyclist (UCI Road World C’ships 2011; Points classification winner Tour de France 2011, 21; Giro d’Italia 2013; Vuelta a España 2010), born in Douglas, Isle of Man
1952 Mr T - American actor (A-Team, Rocky III, T & T), born in Chicago, Illinois
1917 Raymond Burr - Canadian-American actor (Perry Mason; Ironsides; Godzilla), born in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada (d. 1993)
1860 Willem Einthoven - Dutch physiologist and inventor of the electrocardiodiogram (Nobel Prize in Medicine 1924), born in Semarang, Dutch East Indies (d. 1927)
1799 Mary Anning - British fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist (Jurassic marine fossil beds of Lyme Regis), born in Lyme Regis, Dorset (d. 1847)
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2023 Ray Stevenson - Northern Irish actor (King Arthur, Rome), dies at 58
2000 Dame Barbara Cartland - English romance author (Camfield #69), dies at 98
2000 Sir John Gielgud - British stage and screen actor and director (Arthur, Hamlet, Ages of Man), dies at 96
1965 Geoffrey de Havilland - British aircraft designer, dies at 82
1911 Williamina Fleming - pioneering Scottish astronomer, discovered the Horsehead Nebula (1888), dies at 54
Holidays on this day
American Red Cross Founder’s Day
Emergency Medical Services Day (Third Wednesday in May)
Emergency Medical Services for Children Day (Wednesday of EMS Week)
End of the World or Rapture Party Day
I Need a Patch for That Day
International Tea Day
National Employee Health and Fitness Day (Third Wednesday in May)
National Juice Slush Day (Third Wednesday in May)
National Memo Day
National Strawberries and Cream Day
National Waiters and Waitresses Day
Sister Maria Hummel Day
Turn Beauty Inside Out Day (Third Wednesday in May)
World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development
World Orienteering Day (Fourth Wednesday in May)
The Funnies:
Interesting (not necessarily extinct) animal of the day:
The giant deer, Megaloceros giganteus, no longer roams Europe, but fossil bones and antlers in the Museum’s collection hold clues as to how this spectacular prehistoric deer behaved, where it lived and why it went extinct.
More than 20,000 years ago, early humans were drawing giant deer on the walls of caves in what is now Southern France. It’s hard to imagine they weren’t motivated by awe. Standing two metres tall at the shoulder - the height of an average doorframe - these enormous deer would have been a captivating sight. Especially the males with their huge antlers up to three and a half metres in width.
The earliest fossil record of the giant deer is from 400,000 years ago and the last fossil record is from 8,000 years ago. It is thought the species probably slowly died out due to a changing climate.
The enormous antlers of the giant deer were not only difficult to manoeuvre but also took a lot energy - and therefore food - to grow. So why did the species bother to grow them so big?
Professor Adrian Lister, Museum expert on extinct megafauna, says these antlers became as big as they did because of sexual selection.
Through genetic analysis, Adrian and his colleagues have found that the closest living relative of the giant deer is the fallow deer. He thinks both species might have found a mate in similar ways.
During the mating season, the males of the fallow deer form what’s called a lek. This is an area where females gather and males compete by roaring, parading side by side and fighting by locking antlers and pushing and twisting each other.
‘In this display of strength, bigger antlers were probably more intimidating to other males and more desirable to the females, who would wander into the lek to choose their mate,’ says Adrian.
The male deer shed their antlers in spring then grew a new pair during the summer months, ready for the mating season in autumn.
Males had to be built to carry the heavy antlers. We know from looking at their fossils that the top of their skulls was extra thick and that they had very sturdy neck vertebrae. Fossils also indicate that the vertebrae in the shoulder region were elongated, suggesting males had a hump on their backs with muscles that might have helped to carry the weight of their huge antlers.
The antlers of the giant deer were so big that a male with antlers wouldn’t have been able to walk through a dense forest without getting snagged on trees and branches. As a result, they preferred to roam in parkland - a mixture of open woodlands and grasslands.
Like many of the extinctions we see happening today, the giant deer was probably pushed to extinction by a combination of pressures.
An animal or plant might be able to adapt to one or two environmental changes but any more than that and it becomes harder to survive.
The first wave of extinction for the giant deer was around 12,000 years ago when it disappeared from Ireland, Britain and most of Europe. During this time, at the end of the Ice Age, the climate became very cold and severe, and food for the deer would have been very scarce.
The added pressure of having to find enough food to grow their enormous antlers might have made it difficult for the deer to adapt and survive.
But this period wasn’t the end of the story for the giant deer. After carbon dating a fossil bone collected from Central Russia, Adrian found that there was one remaining enclave of this species living there until around 8,000 years ago.
Read more: The Irish elk: when and why did this giant deer go extinct and what did it look like? | Natural History Museum
Quote of the Day:
“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
Albert Einstein
Video of the Day:
Happy birthday to Fats Waller (1904):
And to Ronald Isley (1941):
And also Gotye (1980):
Comic of the Day:
Credit: #1078; In which a Meal is bartered – Wondermark
Inspirobot Always Controversial, Occasionally Inspirational Quote of the Day:
Read @Vikingmichael’s solo non-stop transatlantic Spark! from yesterday here: https://community.spiceworks.com/t/spark-pro-series-20-may-2025
Don’t forget to leave some spice right here ↓
