I wish the article included a bit more info about the significance of the particle, instead of just describing how energetic it was. For example, it never expands on this, which is IMO the most interesting sentence on the page:
> The particle's energy was unexpected and called into question theories of that era about the origin and propagation of cosmic rays.
Yeah... It makes more sense when this article is linked from other Wikipedia pages. See the linked article:
> The Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin limit (GZK limit or GZK cutoff) is a theoretical upper limit on the energy of cosmic ray protons traveling from other galaxies through the intergalactic medium to our galaxy. The limit is 5×1019 eV (50 EeV), or about 8 joules (the energy of a proton travelling at ≈ 99.99999999999999999998% the speed of light). The limit is set by the slowing effect of interactions of the protons with the microwave background radiation over long distances (≈ 160 million light-years).
The very highest energy cosmic rays are theorized to come from Active Galactic Nuclei (very hot stuff around the giant black hole at the center of galaxies) or supernovae (large exploding stars), or even from the magnetic fields of galaxies themselves, all which are mostly outside the Milky Way. The implication is that some of these particles could be coming from smaller, closer sources, close enough to not be slowed by the MBR. This is unusual because it seems like closer phenomenon shouldn't be able to accelerate a proton that much.
> If the proton originated from a distance of 1.5 billion light years, it would take approximately 1.71 days from the reference frame of the proton to travel that distance.
Imagine traveling 10% of the size of the observable universe in 2 days.
Also at this speed a space ship a 100 m wide viewed from earth would appear to be 0.3125 nm wide or roughly size of a single water molecule. It would certainly be a way to travel!
note: not a physicist so my understanding may be off.
Any thoughts on what it might feel like to get hit with this particle? I imagine the collision would turn into heat pretty quickly and the heat energy would conduct out from where you got hit and, if it was near any nerves, you might feel a warm spot on your body. Since energy scales with the square of velocity and momentum scales linearly with velocity, I can't imagine you would feel like you'd been hit by an object.
> The Oh-My-God particle had 10^20 (100 quintillion) times the photon energy of visible light, equivalent to a 142-gram (5 oz) baseball travelling at about 28 m/s (100 km/h; 63 mph)
For comparison a typical professional baseball pitch is around 90mph. At 63mph I guess it might not break your face, but it would certainly leave a bruise (if it was actually a baseball -- who knows what the actual particle would do to flesh and bone). I know people are pretty derisive about using swimming pools or whatever for measurement, but I think this one is pretty good for bringing incomprehensible numbers into the realm of lay-understanding.
The critical factor here is less the energy of the particle than the mechanism of transmission.
As others have noted, the total energy equivalent is that of a moderately-fast baseball throw, which, in the case of a baseball is perceptible but generally not harmful.
The transmission mechanism for the baseball is the electromagnetic force, where the individual molecules of the baseball are interacting with the individual molecules of your body, and the imposed and reactive forces are roughly equivalent.
In the case of the OMG particle, as a proton it would exert a positive charge, and might steal an electron (becoming a hydrogen atom in the process), or interact directly with a nucleus, though likely splitting that. The atoms of your body are principally carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, atomic numbers 1, 12, 14, and 16, respectively. The result of such an interaction might be isotopes of: H, He, Li, Be, or B, numbers 1--5 inclusive. There would likely be a chain of such interactions depending on the effective cross-section of the incident particle, atoms in your body, and any collision particles, though this is pretty much where my physics knowledge abandons me.
Online sources suggest that this is pretty accurate: the particle would pass straight through you:
Presuming there is a collision within your body, at this point you have a particle stream, interacting with other material through electromagnetic and nuclear (strong and weak) forces. Again, you're dealing with exceedingly high energies, and it seems likely to me that those particles would tend to exit your body and have further interactions with the surrounding region (air and solid matter), which would result in some local ionisation and light heating. The question is the interaction cross-section of the incident particle, atoms within your body, and any collision and decay products.
Point being that you don't want to necessarily direct the maximum energy at a target, but the energy that will disrupt or interact with that target in the manner in which you intend.
Cosmic rays are striking your body all the time, though at lower energies. The effects tend to be local ionisation and, most critically, damage to genetic material. The latter is the most significant from a biological perspective.
One thing to keep in mind is that the particle will likely only lose a 'tiny' fraction of its energy in a collision (the article mentions 2900 TeV for an atom of nitrogen) and it might not even cause a 'hard' collision. A collision will probably create a shower of particles which will carry away most of the energy.
My new best guess is that most of the energy would no be contained in your body but would be ejected out as a bunch of other high energy particles (just not that high energy).
> More recent studies using the Telescope Array Project have suggested a source of the particles within a 20 degree radius "warm spot" in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major.
Some choice interesting quotes about the potential origin of such particles:
> Instead, theorists generally expect that the most energetic cosmic rays rev up over millions of years in unidentified accelerators the size of galaxies.
> Physicists think that the highest energy cosmic rays cannot come from more than 500 million light-years away, as interactions with lingering radiation from the big bang ought to snuff out cosmic rays from more distant sources. But no obvious candidate for a nearby cosmic accelerator lies directly in line with the hotspot, Sokolsky says. He notes, however, that in that region a filament of galaxies kinks toward Earth and speculates that magnetic fields in that string might help rev up particles.
> At this speed, if a photon were traveling alongside the particle, it would take over 215,000 years for the photon to gain a 1 cm lead, as seen from the Earth's reference frame.
Can someone ELI5 what this means? This particle was going .(some # of 9's)C, so does this mean a photon traveling at 1.0C is SO CLOSE IN SPEED that in order for Ct >= 1cm + (0.999C)t (where t is time), t would have to be 215k years?
How does matter moving at near light speed exhibit gravity? From the particles frame of reference time is moving much more slowly than for things like planets. So does this mean the gravity is also time dilated?
>The High Resolution Fly's Eye or HiRes detector was an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray observatory that operated in the western Utah desert from May 1997 until April 2006 (...)
>The HiRes discovered the Oh-My-God particle, an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray, on 15 October 1991
>The new Utah experiment began observations in 1981 and was operated until 1993. A second detector site was completed in 1986.
Interesting, some dates are clearly wrong here. I don't feel confident enough to edit the Wikipedia article, but I guess there were actually two observatories - the "old" one (1981-1993, detected the particle) and the "new" one (1997-2006)?
Are these the sprites? As in the thunderstorm provides a field raising the likelihood of interaction and a oh my god particle slaps through the earth into the field?
> The energy of this particle was some 40 million times that of the highest-energy protons that have been produced in any terrestrial particle accelerator.
If it were me observing this, and I didn't observe it again, I would attribute it to something else. However rare, I would consider some phenomenon as part of the sensor (for example decay causing a release of energy), or two particles arriving at the same time, some localised event, etc.
I'm sure they already addressed this, but I would be considering some other source of such a high energy particle. It's just too perfect, why would we see such a high energy particle and nothing inbetween?
- Observation of primary and corresponding secondary events, e.g., an initial interaction with the atmosphere and further observations consistent with collision / decay particles arising from an initial interaction.
Put another way: if you see a bright flash (visual sensation), and some seconds later hear a heavy rumble (audio sensation), and within a few minutes observe heavy rain, odds are quite strong that the initial observation was lightning. This is based on multiple independent channels of information.
If you and multiple other people see the same flash at the same time, you have independent observations, and can validate the initial observation by that means.
In a world of increasingly high-plausibility generative tools (images, audio, text, video), the ability to show multiple independent observations of a given event becomes far more critical than the emergence of any one high-detailed, realistic document (where document refers to a record in text, audio, image, video, etc.).
[+] [-] marcellus23|2 years ago|reply
> The particle's energy was unexpected and called into question theories of that era about the origin and propagation of cosmic rays.
[+] [-] brucethemoose2|2 years ago|reply
> The Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin limit (GZK limit or GZK cutoff) is a theoretical upper limit on the energy of cosmic ray protons traveling from other galaxies through the intergalactic medium to our galaxy. The limit is 5×1019 eV (50 EeV), or about 8 joules (the energy of a proton travelling at ≈ 99.99999999999999999998% the speed of light). The limit is set by the slowing effect of interactions of the protons with the microwave background radiation over long distances (≈ 160 million light-years).
The very highest energy cosmic rays are theorized to come from Active Galactic Nuclei (very hot stuff around the giant black hole at the center of galaxies) or supernovae (large exploding stars), or even from the magnetic fields of galaxies themselves, all which are mostly outside the Milky Way. The implication is that some of these particles could be coming from smaller, closer sources, close enough to not be slowed by the MBR. This is unusual because it seems like closer phenomenon shouldn't be able to accelerate a proton that much.
[+] [-] dvh|2 years ago|reply
Imagine traveling 10% of the size of the observable universe in 2 days.
[+] [-] miteyironpaw|2 years ago|reply
note: not a physicist so my understanding may be off.
[+] [-] jkyrlach|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] platz|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elil17|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TooKool4This|2 years ago|reply
It’s more like getting punched. Really hard.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy)
[+] [-] klyrs|2 years ago|reply
For comparison a typical professional baseball pitch is around 90mph. At 63mph I guess it might not break your face, but it would certainly leave a bruise (if it was actually a baseball -- who knows what the actual particle would do to flesh and bone). I know people are pretty derisive about using swimming pools or whatever for measurement, but I think this one is pretty good for bringing incomprehensible numbers into the realm of lay-understanding.
[+] [-] dredmorbius|2 years ago|reply
As others have noted, the total energy equivalent is that of a moderately-fast baseball throw, which, in the case of a baseball is perceptible but generally not harmful.
The transmission mechanism for the baseball is the electromagnetic force, where the individual molecules of the baseball are interacting with the individual molecules of your body, and the imposed and reactive forces are roughly equivalent.
In the case of the OMG particle, as a proton it would exert a positive charge, and might steal an electron (becoming a hydrogen atom in the process), or interact directly with a nucleus, though likely splitting that. The atoms of your body are principally carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, atomic numbers 1, 12, 14, and 16, respectively. The result of such an interaction might be isotopes of: H, He, Li, Be, or B, numbers 1--5 inclusive. There would likely be a chain of such interactions depending on the effective cross-section of the incident particle, atoms in your body, and any collision particles, though this is pretty much where my physics knowledge abandons me.
Online sources suggest that this is pretty accurate: the particle would pass straight through you:
<https://www.technology.org/how-and-why/if-proton-nearly-at-l...>
Presuming there is a collision within your body, at this point you have a particle stream, interacting with other material through electromagnetic and nuclear (strong and weak) forces. Again, you're dealing with exceedingly high energies, and it seems likely to me that those particles would tend to exit your body and have further interactions with the surrounding region (air and solid matter), which would result in some local ionisation and light heating. The question is the interaction cross-section of the incident particle, atoms within your body, and any collision and decay products.
Point being that you don't want to necessarily direct the maximum energy at a target, but the energy that will disrupt or interact with that target in the manner in which you intend.
Cosmic rays are striking your body all the time, though at lower energies. The effects tend to be local ionisation and, most critically, damage to genetic material. The latter is the most significant from a biological perspective.
[+] [-] HansHamster|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elil17|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ck2|2 years ago|reply
https://www.pbs.org/video/the-oh-my-god-particle-54npwl/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osvOr5wbkUw
[+] [-] gnatman|2 years ago|reply
https://www.science.org/content/article/physicists-spot-pote...
[+] [-] marcellus23|2 years ago|reply
> Instead, theorists generally expect that the most energetic cosmic rays rev up over millions of years in unidentified accelerators the size of galaxies.
> Physicists think that the highest energy cosmic rays cannot come from more than 500 million light-years away, as interactions with lingering radiation from the big bang ought to snuff out cosmic rays from more distant sources. But no obvious candidate for a nearby cosmic accelerator lies directly in line with the hotspot, Sokolsky says. He notes, however, that in that region a filament of galaxies kinks toward Earth and speculates that magnetic fields in that string might help rev up particles.
[+] [-] michaelcampbell|2 years ago|reply
Can someone ELI5 what this means? This particle was going .(some # of 9's)C, so does this mean a photon traveling at 1.0C is SO CLOSE IN SPEED that in order for Ct >= 1cm + (0.999C)t (where t is time), t would have to be 215k years?
[+] [-] simiones|2 years ago|reply
Though, to me it seems that the article's explanation is the ELI5 of your equation, not the other way around...
[+] [-] danbruc|2 years ago|reply
About one nanometer per week in case that is more relatable.
[+] [-] rapjr9|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hifromwork|2 years ago|reply
>The Oh-My-God particle was an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray detected on 15 October 1991 by the Fly's Eye camera in Dugway Proving Ground
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Resolution_Fly%27s_Eye_Co...:
>The High Resolution Fly's Eye or HiRes detector was an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray observatory that operated in the western Utah desert from May 1997 until April 2006 (...) >The HiRes discovered the Oh-My-God particle, an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray, on 15 October 1991
http://www.cosmic-ray.org/reading/flyseye.html:
>The new Utah experiment began observations in 1981 and was operated until 1993. A second detector site was completed in 1986.
Interesting, some dates are clearly wrong here. I don't feel confident enough to edit the Wikipedia article, but I guess there were actually two observatories - the "old" one (1981-1993, detected the particle) and the "new" one (1997-2006)?
[+] [-] 3seashells|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matonias|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dredmorbius|2 years ago|reply
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37793828>
[+] [-] kstrauser|2 years ago|reply
The kinetic impact alone would get your attention.
[+] [-] KyleBerezin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bArray|2 years ago|reply
If it were me observing this, and I didn't observe it again, I would attribute it to something else. However rare, I would consider some phenomenon as part of the sensor (for example decay causing a release of energy), or two particles arriving at the same time, some localised event, etc.
I'm sure they already addressed this, but I would be considering some other source of such a high energy particle. It's just too perfect, why would we see such a high energy particle and nothing inbetween?
[+] [-] dredmorbius|2 years ago|reply
- Repeated observations.
- Simultaneous independent observations: multiple devices/instruments.
- Observation of primary and corresponding secondary events, e.g., an initial interaction with the atmosphere and further observations consistent with collision / decay particles arising from an initial interaction.
Put another way: if you see a bright flash (visual sensation), and some seconds later hear a heavy rumble (audio sensation), and within a few minutes observe heavy rain, odds are quite strong that the initial observation was lightning. This is based on multiple independent channels of information.
If you and multiple other people see the same flash at the same time, you have independent observations, and can validate the initial observation by that means.
In a world of increasingly high-plausibility generative tools (images, audio, text, video), the ability to show multiple independent observations of a given event becomes far more critical than the emergence of any one high-detailed, realistic document (where document refers to a record in text, audio, image, video, etc.).
[+] [-] jackmott42|2 years ago|reply