Secrets of the Universe, Cosmic Rays.

A cosmic ray is one of the most energetic events in the universe, it travels through any number of light years over millions of years to end up passing through our planet and our bodies; It can also be gamma rays, as well as particles accelerated at speeds very close to that of light, at these speeds we call them relativistic.

Most of these particles are protons that are accelerated to those speeds by strong electromagnetic fields like those found in stars like our sun, although we only call those that come from outside the solar system cosmic rays, what comes from the Sun we call it solar wind or solar storm, although our sun is very impressive, it illuminates us, warms us and basically makes us exist, in a universe where the average temperature is minus 271 degrees Celsius, the ionized particles that they emit do not have the enough energy to penetrate the protective shield that our planet has in the form of an electromagnetic field and it is fortunate because that radiation would not be good for us.

We live thanks to the privilege of being close to a star, warm and calm, but not too close and on an iron planet that is basically a giant magnet, which deflects excessive radiation from the sun and has a soup of gases on top, the atmosphere , which protects us from anything that could penetrate, from solar particles to meteorites and that in that soup of gases there is oxygen so that we can breathe.

It makes you think about how lucky we are to be here, literally, it is the VIP seat of the known universe, but there are cosmic rays that have so much energy that they pass through the atmosphere, the ceiling of my house, the slab of the second floor and can keep going through the rocks and the ground below; in 1991 a cosmic ray was detected so energetic that it was called OMG; oh my God, because that was the reaction of the scientists who discovered it.

Another comparison that can be made is that the energy of the OMG particle was the same as that of a baseball ball traveling at 94 kilometers per hour, that is, the energy with which a professional league pitcher throws a ball but concentrated in A single proton, if they throw a ball at you at that speed it hurts and if they hit you in the head it will probably turn off the lights, but that same energy concentrated in a proton makes it move at almost the speed of light taking that inertia.

And that inertia, even though the mass of the proton is tiny, is enough to wreak havoc with our genetic material, if it hits us, that is why it is dangerous to be in space and even commercial aircraft when flying above the densest layers of the planet. atmosphere are at the mercy of cosmic rays, a flight to Europa exposes you to radiation equivalent to five x-ray chest plates, it is one of the advantages of being poor, for this reason it is believed that cosmic rays come from very energetic events, Like the explosion that happens in some types of very large stars when they reach a certain stage in their lives and that make them, for a very short period of time, the brightest thing in their entire galaxy, we call these explosions supernovae.

Although it is believed that cosmic rays also come from jets of matter accelerated at relativistic speeds, called quasars and blazars produced by supermassive black holes that exist in the center of galaxies; There is a curious fact, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy does not produce these relativistic particle jets, because it does not eat enough, for a supermassive black hole to emit its respective quasars and blazars it needs to eat at least the equivalent of three stars like our sun, every day, for the moment, is on a diet, let's hope it continues like this; well up to here, I hope your head hasn't hurt too much, see you soon.

Thank you for visiting my blog. If you like posts about #science, #planet, #politics, #rights #crypto, #traveling and discovering secrets and beauties of the #universe, feel free to Follow me as these are the topics I write about the most. Have a wonderful day and stay on this great platform :) :)

! The truth will set us free and science is the one that is closest to the truth!