The rarest and most energetic particles, called UHECRs (ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays), carry more than a billion times the energy of 3 GeV gamma rays, and their origins stay one of the greatest secrets in astrophysics.Top: An all-sky map of extragalactic gamma rays in which the main aircraft of our galaxy, revealed in dark blue where information has actually been gotten rid of, runs throughout the middle. Being electrically charged, cosmic rays are diverted by the galaxys magnetic field by various amounts depending on their energies, but the UHECR dipole peaks in a sky area similar to what Kashlinskys team finds in gamma rays. And both have noticeably comparable magnitudes– about 7% more gamma rays or particles than average coming from one instructions and alike smaller sized quantities showing up from the opposite direction.The researchers think its most likely the 2 phenomena are connected– that as yet unknown sources are producing both the gamma rays and the ultrahigh-energy particles.
“Gamma-Ray Signal and Cosmic MysteryIntriguingly, the gamma-ray signal is discovered in a comparable instructions and with a nearly similar magnitude as another unusual function, one produced by some of the most energetic cosmic particles ever detected.A paper explaining the findings was published on January 10 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.The scientists integrated 13 years of Fermi Large Area Telescope observations of gamma rays above about 3 billion electron volts (GeV), removed all discrete sources and stripped out the main aircraft of our Milky Way galaxy in order to analyze the extragalactic gamma-ray background. Credit: NASAs Goddard Space Flight CenterGamma-Ray Dipole Surprises ResearchersThe team reasoned that by adding together numerous years of data from Fermis LAT (Large Area Telescope), which scans the entire sky lots of times a day, a related dipole emission pattern could be discovered in gamma rays. The rarest and most energetic particles, called UHECRs (ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays), carry more than a billion times the energy of 3 GeV gamma rays, and their origins remain one of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics.Top: An all-sky map of extragalactic gamma rays in which the central plane of our galaxy, revealed in dark blue where information has been removed, runs across the middle. Being electrically charged, cosmic rays are diverted by the galaxys magnetic field by various amounts depending on their energies, however the UHECR dipole peaks in a sky place similar to what Kashlinskys group discovers in gamma rays. And both have noticeably comparable magnitudes– about 7% more gamma rays or particles than typical coming from one direction and alike smaller quantities arriving from the opposite direction.The researchers think its likely the 2 phenomena are connected– that as yet unknown sources are producing both the gamma rays and the ultrahigh-energy particles.