The Oh My God Particle

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Matt O'Dowd (1:33)

Long before the god particle, there was the oh my god particle, a cosmic ray vastly more energetic than had ever been seen, or was even thought possible. These ultra high energy cosmic rays still perplex scientists. Where are these extra galactic death rays coming from?

On October 15th, 1991, a single atomic nucleus traveling at 99.999999999999999999999999995.1 percent of the speed of light crashed through our atmosphere and streaked across the Utah sky. The nucleus quickly disintegrated into a shower of subatomic particles and light. That light was seen by the Fly's Eye Observatory, a collection of oversized tin cans that was an early experiment by the University of Utah to spot the highest energy cosmic rays in the universe. Scientists analyzing the Fly's Eye data calculated that the cosmic ray responsible for this particular flash must have had a kinetic energy of 300 exa electron volts. That's 48 joules, an amount of energy we associate with macroscopic, not subatomic objects. That single atomic nucleus carried as much kinetic energy as a good size stone thrown at your head at 50 miles an hour.

The particle was dubbed the Oh My God particle. Nothing like it had ever been seen before. In fact, cosmic rays of that energy was supposed to be impossible. Let's talk about cosmic rays for a second. Radioactivity was discovered by Marie Curie and Henri Becquerel at the end of the 1800s. High energy particles, electrons, and small atomic nuclei, as well as gamma rays, are ejected when heavier radioactive elements decay. We're bathed in a very low level of this radiation due to naturally occurring radioactive elements in the Earth. Soon after its discovery, this ambient radioactive flux was found to weaken with height above the ground because the radiation loses energy to air molecules. But weirdly, above a certain height, this radiation starts to increase again. Theodore Wolfe first noticed this in 1909 when he took a detector to the top of the Eiffel Tower. But the real proof came a few years later in 1912 when Victor Hess took some of Wolfe's detectors on a hot air balloon ride. Radiation levels increased with height, and that meant there had to be a source of these high energy particles somewhere above. It turns out they were coming from space. Cosmic rays had been discovered. In the years following Hess' balloon ride, and even following the flyers eye detection of the Oh My God particle, we've come a long way in the art of catching cosmic rays.

They are elusive little critters. You can't focus them into a camera like you can with light. Also, as Hess discovered, most don't make it to the ground anyway.

For lower energy cosmic rays, one approach is to look for their Cherenkov radiation. All cosmic rays are traveling at pretty close to the speed of light, but that's the speed of light in a vacuum. Light travels slower in a medium like air. So when cosmic rays enter the atmosphere, they're actually traveling faster than the new lower speed of light. This results in a burst of gamma rays, Cherenkov radiation, that is actually detectable from the ground. Higher energy cosmic rays tend to obliterate themselves several kilometers above the ground in massive collisions with the nuclei of air molecules. The result is a cascade of subatomic particles, the debris of the collision, that can spread itself out over several kilometers. These cascades are called air showers. Streams of charged particles cause the air to fluoresce, a glow that can be seen by specialized telescopes. Many of the debris particles also reach the ground and can be detected there. By analyzing the energies and trajectories of the debris, the collision that produced them and the nature of the original cosmic ray can be reconstructed.