The Oh My God particle
Stories from Physics
for 11-14
14-16
16-19
On the 15 October 1991, a cosmic ray with an energy of 300 million TeV was detected in Utah. It is thought to have been a proton travelling at very close to the speed of light and its unprecedented energy has led to it being referred to as the Oh My God particle. The single particle would have had about as much energy as a baseball travelling at 100 km/h. The exact source of such a highly energetic particle is not known, but researchers speculate that it may have originated from either a hot spot in a radio galaxy, a gamma ray burst or a supermassive black hole.
References
J. Baggot, Higgs: The invention and discovery of the 'God Particle', Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 117
D. Clery, What's the Source of the Most Energetic Cosmic Rays? Science, 336(6085), 2012, 1096-1097, p.1096
