While this has no direct connection to 2012 itself, it does highlight how easily we are able to forget the extraordinary forces of cosmic rays, which are zapping through each of us right now, which account for 50% of current rates of genetic mutations, and an increase of which could be a tragedy for life on Earth.

It may sound far-fetched, but federal regulators are studying whether sudden acceleration in Toyotas is linked to cosmic rays. Radiation from space long has affected airplanes and spacecraft, and is known for triggering errors in computer systems, but has received scant attention in the auto industry.

The questions show how deep regulators and automakers may have to dig to solve the mysteries of sudden acceleration. An anonymous tipster whose complaint prompted regulators to look at the issue said the design of Toyota’s microprocessors, memory chips and software could make them more vulnerable than those of other automakers.

The phenomenon can trigger software crashes that come and go without a trace. Unlike interference from radio waves, there’s no way to physically block particles; such errors typically have to be prevented by a combination of software and hardware design.

The tipster told NHTSA last month that “the automotive industry has yet to truly anticipate SEUs (Single Event Upsets).” Such radiation “occurs virtually anywhere,” said William Price, who spent 20 years at the Jet Propulsion Lab testing for radiation effects on electronics. “It doesn’t happen in a certain locale, like you would expect in an electromagnetic problem from a radio tower or something else.”

Researchers working from seven years worth of results from the Los Alamos’ Milagro cosmic-ray observatory have found that the two spots (marked in red above), have been sending us more cosmic rays than would be expected statistically.

Interestingly, these hotspots, located near the constellations of Gemini and Taurus, are very close to Orion – a place well-known to alternative Egyptologists.

The two possibilites presented are:

a) something in that area that we don’t presently understand is emitting the cosmic rays

b) something we have not yet discovered is acting like a gravitational lens, making the rays appear to come from those spots

Either way, hopefully in the next 4 years the experts will work out what is going on.

(Nearby in space terms means hundreds of light years…)

For the last 8 years researchers in Antarctica have been flying a balloon carrying the NASA-funded cosmic ray detector known as the Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter. Results have shown that more high-energy cosmic rays are crashing into our atmosphere than expected. Their high-energy indicates that they must come from reasonably close by, for they lose energy over long distances.

Possible sources include dark matter (still theoretical), or “a nearby pulsar, a ‘microquasar’ or a stellar-mass black hole.”

More at NASA

Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are the fastest moving objects ever found. If a ray of light travels through a void for 300 million years, and an UHECR travels on the same journey, light will get there a mere microsecond quicker.

Given the density of microwave radiation thought to fill the voids of space, scientists have been puzzled as to how the UHECRs are hitting Earth at full speed, without being slowed down by radiation (or anything else in their way).

According to Scientific American (April 2008, pages 14-15), the world’s largest array of cosmic ray detectors in Argentina has discovered that most UHECRs are coming from nearby galaxies. Strangely none are coming from the Virgo cluster of galaxies, only 60 million light years away.

One of the possible explanations is that super-massive black holes in Virgo are lacking the power of those in other nearby galaxies.

As usual, the super-massive black hole at the center of our own galaxy, and the capacity it may have to bombard us with cosmic rays, is not mentioned.

According to New Scientist, Nov 17 2007:

The Auger researchers analysed all 27 of the most energetic cosmic rays… and found that almost all seemed to come from AGNs less than 250 million light years away…

However… astronomers can’t yet rule out the possibility that some high-energy cosmic rays come from gamma-ray bursts

AGNs are Active Galactic Nuclei, of which the nearest is our own Galactic Center – which so far does not appear to spit out cosmic rays, but you’d be foolish to think that this means it won’t.

Observers had believed white dwarfs were inert stellar corpses that slowly cool and fade away…At least one white dwarf, known as AE Aquarii, emits pulses of high-energy (hard) X-rays as it whirls around on its axis. “We’re seeing behavior like the pulsar in the Crab Nebula, but we’re seeing it in a white dwarf,” says Koji Mukai of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

…Some white dwarfs, including AE Aquarii, spin very rapidly and have magnetic fields millions of times stronger than Earth’s. These characteristics give them the energy to generate cosmic rays.

Found at Space Daily.

(great, more to worry about!)