Which Ray?: Conflicting Data on High-Energy Cosmic Rays Leave Their Source--or Sources--Unresolved
Nature certainly has a way of one-upping the fruits of human ingenuity. Extreme astrophysical objects have long been known to accelerate the particles that make up cosmic rays to whopping energies that make the Large Hadron Collider look like a child's slingshot. The mammoth collider near Geneva, Switzerland, which resumed service in 2009 after an aborted start-up the year before, will ultimately boost protons to energies of seven trillion electron volts. Cosmic-ray protons, in comparison, have been clocked striking Earth with tens of million times as much energy; a single proton can pack as much punch as a baseball hurled at 60 miles per hour. (For the technically inclined, some cosmic rays have energies exceeding 10 20 electron volts.) [More] Large Hadron Collider - Geneva - Switzerland - Cosmic ray - Physics