We are finally closing in on the cosmic origins of the “OMG particle”

The helicopter was flying excessive via the evening sky with its door barely ajar. Johannes Eser and Matthew Rodencal have been within the again controlling a laser mentioning via the hole. They aimed in the direction of a balloon 35 kilometres above them and fired.

It appears like a scene from a spy film, however Eser and Rodencal, then on the Colorado Faculty of Mines, have been really testing a plan to identify ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, probably the most energetic particles ever found. They stream throughout the universe earlier than slamming into our environment and emitting a tiny flash of sunshine. The laser was imagined to mimic that flash.

This twilight helicopter trip occurred practically a decade in the past, however is a part of a saga that goes again to a minimum of 1991. In October that 12 months, we detected the only most energetic particle ever seen. It had the kinetic vitality of a bowling ball dropped from shoulder peak, crammed right into a subatomic-sized bundle. It rapidly turned often known as the “Oh-My-God particle” and, naturally sufficient, scientists have been determined to know the place it got here from.

Since then, now we have noticed many comparable particles. Enormous ground-based detectors have supplied us with maps of the place they may come from, along with a shortlist of the intense cosmic objects that would produce them. However reality be advised, we nonetheless don’t have all of the solutions. That’s the reason scientists now wish to take the cosmic ray hunt into the environment – and finally into area – in an effort to resolve the thriller as soon as and for all.

This story actually started with one other balloon in 1911. At the moment, physicist Victor Hess climbed right into a …