Amaterasu

Recently, astronomers have detected a rare and extremely high-energy particle falling to Earth.

It is one of the most powerful cosmic rays slamming into Earth and has been named "Amaterasu" after the Japanese sun goddess.
These ultra-high energy particle passes atmosphere smoothly without any deflection by magnetic fields.
Spotted by – Telescope Array observatory in Utah, a collaboration of the United States, Japan, Korea, Russia, and Belgium to observe cosmic rays.
Energy – It exceeds 240 exa-electron volts (EeV), millions of times more powerful than the particles produced by the Large Hadron Collider, which is the most powerful accelerator ever built.
It is 2^nd only to the ‘Oh-My-God’ particle, another high-energy cosmic ray at 320 EeV that was detected in 1991.
Source – Only the most powerful cosmic events, on scales far exceeding the explosion of a star, are thought to be capable of producing such energetic particles.
But Amaterasu appears to have emerged from the Local Void, an empty area of space bordering the Milky Way galaxy.

Cosmic Rays

A radiation that is constantly rains down on Earth from space.
Properties – They are electrically charged and so deflected by various magnetic fields throughout the galaxy.
Detection - The rays don't point directly back to their sources.
Composition – They are mainly protons (89%) but also includes nuclei of helium (10%) and heavier nuclei (1%).
Impact – When they crash into our atmosphere, they are broken up and fall to Earth in even smaller fragments.
Significance – Helps in understanding the chemical evolution of the universe.

Reasons for non-detection
- It could be from a source that we have not yet identified.
- It might have been magnetically deflected much higher than current models predict.

Scientists might need to rewrite their incomplete understanding of high-energy particle physics

Source:

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