Articles in Cosmic Rays
A little poison helps, a lot harms – “hormesis”
You may have come across hormesis previously:
charcoal water is often used when people have overdosed on their medications, but too many charred steaks increases your cancer risk
many ancient sites (i.e. stone circles) have people who believe that they have curative properties, yet they have heightened naturally occurring levels of radiation
cancer can be cured by radiation therapies
small amounts of DNA damage can lead to evolution, large amounts can kill
The last on the list is of particular interest to me. I think that evolution is partially driven by increases in cosmic radiation, that evolution and global cataclysms quite likely go hand-in-hand, and therefore the cataclysms include a component of cosmic radiation (suggesting a cause from beyond Earth). While a major increase in cosmic radiation could decimate life on our planet, a lesser increase could cause a beneficial, evolutionary rise in mutations.
Research in hormesis is growing rapidly in recent years, according to Science …
LaViolette: Super-sized Solar Proton Event
A lot of serious cataclysm research revolves around the event of 10-12 thousand years ago, when the ice age abruptly ended and mega-fauna were wiped out, especially in the Americas. Paul LaViolette is one of best credentialed researchers into what might occur in 2012, and his latest research was published in the journal Radiocarbon. LaViolette believes that a super sized solar proton event (SPE) impacted our planet roughly 13,000 years ago:
The radiocarbon increase of the two largest 14C spurts was comparable to that produced by a SPE at least 125 times stronger than the hard spectrum SPE that occurred in February 1956.
Extrapolating upward from that event, LaViolette estimates that the 12,837 years BP extinction level SPE would have delivered over a two day period a radiation dose of from 3 to more than 6 Sieverts, lethal dose (LD-100) for most mammals being in the range of 3 – 8 Sieverts.
Hence …
Ice Crystals and Solar Halos
According to recent reports, ice crystals in the sky are on the increase, as evidenced by some recent solar halos in Kolkata and Bournemouth:
The ice crystals are also to blame for a recent episode of severe turbulence aboard a Qantas flight. They have also caused problems in the ocean, in attempts to plug the Gulf of Mexico oil leak. Some researchers believe that an increase in ice crystals is due to an increase in cosmic rays. Perhaps these recent events are precursors to an announcement regarding uncertainty over why cosmic rays are suddenly more prevalent?
Cosmic Rays / Sting / Asteroid in 2182
A neutrino observatory consisting of strings of detectors buried deep in Antarctic ice has confirmed that more cosmic rays arrive from some parts of the sky than others, something already observed in the northern hemisphere
BBC movie show Talking Movies has an interview with Sting about the new 2012 doco called 2012: Time For Change
Spanish asteroid trackers estimate that asteroid 1999 RQ36 has a chance in 1,000 of crashing into our planet in the year 2182. NASA says 1 in 3,570. At over 500 metres in width, the impact would be catastrophic. Still, you’d expect we’d be able to shift the path of an asteroid by then…
Toyota Problem Due To Cosmic Rays?
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 …
WR 104 – Potential Space Nasty
I really like “bad astronomy” articles, but even more so when they admit they are scared. In this instance it is a binary star known as Wr 104. At a distance of 5000-8000 light years a supernova is not expected to harm us. But a Gamma Ray Burst might, especially if it is aimed straight at us!
GRBs are a special type of supernova. When a very massive star explodes, the inner core collapses, forming a black hole, while the outer layers explode outwards. Due to a complex and fierce collusion of forces in the core, two beams of raw fury can erupt out of the star, mind-numbing in their power. Composed mostly of high-energy gamma rays, they can carry more energy in them than the Sun will put out in its entire lifetime. They are so energetic we can see them clear across the Universe, and having one too close …
Cosmic Rays Reach Modern Era High
Within the “Space Age” (since the 1950s) this year marks the greatest intensity of cosmic rays reaching planet Earth. Not coincidentally, this year is also the lowest solar minimum of the period. Basically more solar activity means more solar wind which enhances the heliosphere, the Sun’s magnetic field that helps protect us.
It’s a double-edged sword; at one end of the scale we get more cosmic rays, which means greater levels of mutation (cosmic rays are responsible for roughly 50% of random genetic damage), and at the other end we get an increase in solar flares, which can cause us harm when aimed in our direction.
If we could choose, we’d like the sun to be average, always.
Cosmic Ray Hotspots Located
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.
Mysterious Cosmic Rays from Nearby – More Evidence
(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 – Local Origin?
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 …
AGNs – source of high-energy cosmic rays
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.
White Dwarf Acts Like A Pulsar
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!)
Retinoids to protect from Cosmic Rays?
Scientific American, November 2007:
NASA has worried that cosmic rays could undermine a human voyage to Mars. New simulations and calculations, though, suggest that such lengthy exposure to space radiation may pose only half the health risk that NASA had expected.
…the lower a proton’s energy, the more damage it does. Apparently, lower-energy protons, which travel more slowly, have more time to interact with tissues. In lowering its assessment of risk, NASA also factored in astronauts’ better-than-average health and switched from “whole-body” radiosensitivity to organ-by-organ measurements, where new studies have found lower risks for lungs, breasts and the blood system.
…Possible drugs include retinoids — vitamins that work as antioxidants — and compounds that delay cell division long enough for damaged cells to repair themselves before they can propagate mutations.
Something to consider storing in your bunker, but it might take some finding.
Cosmic Rays come from AGNs: Confirmed
A group of scientists from 17 countries, formed by researchers of the Universidad de Granada, has proved that the sources of the most energetic particles ever detected do not come from directions uniformly distributed in the firmament, but they aim at areas in which there are galaxies with active nuclei in the centre from a relatively close distance.
….Cosmic rays are protons and atomic nuclei that ride the Universe practically at the speed of light. We are still ignorant of the acceleration mechanisms of particles at energies 100 million times higher than those obtained in the largest particle accelerator in the world.
…Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are some of the most violent objects in the Universe. There have been conjectures about its possible link with the production of high energy particles. Scientists think that most of the galaxies present black holes in the centre, with a mass of between one million and …
