Cosmic Rays News

June 13, 2025

Top Headlines

Black Holes Could Act as Natural Supercolliders -- And Help Uncover Dark Matter

June 3, 2025 — Supermassive black holes might naturally replicate the colossal energies of man-made particle colliders possibly even revealing dark matter offering a cosmic shortcut to discoveries that would ...

Particles Energized by Magnetic Reconnection in the Nascent Solar Wind

June 3, 2025 — Scientists have identified a new source of energetic particles near the Sun. These definitive observations were made by instruments aboard NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which detected the powerful phenomena as the spacecraft dipped in and out of the ...

When Lightning Strikes: Gamma-Ray Burst Unleashed by Lightning Collision

May 21, 2025 — A multi-sensor detection of an intense gamma-ray flash, which occurs when two lightning leaders collided, has been observed. Observations across a wide radiation spectrum enabled precise measurement of the electric current produced during this ...

Cosmic Mystery Deepens as Astronomers Find Object Flashing in Both Radio Waves and X-Rays

May 28, 2025 — A team of international astronomers have discovered a new cosmic object emitting both radio waves and ...

'Cosmic Joust': Astronomers Observe Pair of Galaxies in Deep-Space Battle

May 21, 2025 — Astronomers have witnessed for the first time a violent cosmic collision in which one galaxy pierces another with intense radiation. Their results show that this radiation dampens the wounded galaxy's ability to form new ...

Astronomers Observe Largest Ever Sample of Galaxies Up to Over 12 Billion Light Years Away

May 19, 2025 — The largest sample of galaxy groups ever detected has been presented by a team of international astronomers using data from the James Webb Space telescope (JWST) in an area of the sky called COSMOS ...

Dark Matter Formed When Fast Particles Slowed Down and Got Heavy, New Theory Says

May 14, 2025 — Researchers propose a new theory for the origin of dark matter, the invisible substance thought to give the universe its shape and structure. Their mathematical models show that dark matter could ...

Universe Decays Faster Than Thought, but Still Takes a Long Time

May 12, 2025 — The universe is decaying much faster than thought. This is shown by calculations of scientists on the so-called Hawking radiation. They calculate that the last stellar remnants take about 10^78 years (a 1 with 78 zeros) to perish. That is much ...

The Squid Galaxy's Neutrino Game Just Leveled Up

May 8, 2025 — In space, energetic neutrinos are usually paired with energetic gamma rays. Galaxy NGC 1068, however, emits strong neutrinos and weak gamma rays, which presents a puzzle for scientists to solve. A new paper posits that helium nuclei collide with ...

Stellar Collapse and Explosions Distribute Gold Throughout the Universe

May 7, 2025 — Magnetar flares, colossal cosmic explosions, may be directly responsible for the creation and distribution of heavy elements across the universe, suggests a new ...

Innovative Approaches Advance Search for Ice on the Moon

Apr. 23, 2025 — Scientists and space explorers have been on the hunt to determine where and how much ice is present on the Moon. Water ice would be an important resource at a future lunar base, as it could be used to support humans or be broken down to hydrogen and ...

'Cosmic Radio' Could Find Dark Matter in 15 Years

Apr. 16, 2025 — Scientists have designed a 'cosmic radio' detector which could discover dark matter in 15 ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:27pm EDT

From the Andes to the Beginning of Time: Telescopes Detect 13-Billion-Year-Old Signal

June 11, 2025 — Astronomers have pulled off an unprecedented feat: detecting ultra-faint light from the Big Bang using ground-based telescopes. This polarized light ...

Scientist Discovers How Solar Events Affect the Velocity of Helium Pickup Ions

May 21, 2025 — Scientists have discovered how solar activity affects the velocity distribution and evolution of helium pickup ...

Scientists Source Solar Emissions With Largest-Ever Concentration of Rare Helium Isotope

Apr. 9, 2025 — The NASA/ESA Solar Orbiter recently recorded the highest-ever concentration of a rare helium isotope (3He) emitted from the Sun. A Southwest Research ...

Nanomaterials Used to Measure Nuclear Reaction on Radioactive Nuclei Produced in Neutron Star Collisions

Mar. 18, 2025 — Physicists have measured a nuclear reaction that can occur in neutron star collisions, providing direct experimental data for a process that had ...

Detailed Map of Dust in the Milky Way

Mar. 13, 2025 — Astronomers have constructed the first detailed 3D map of the properties of cosmic dust in our home galaxy. For their map, the astronomers used 130 million spectra from ESA's Gaia mission, results ...

Mysterious Phenomenon at Center of Galaxy Could Reveal New Kind of Dark Matter

Mar. 10, 2025 — A mysterious phenomenon at the center of our galaxy could be the result of a different type of dark ...

Breakthrough Study Challenges Long-Held Beliefs About the Shape of Atomic Nuclei

Feb. 20, 2025 — An international research collaboration has overturned the long-standing belief that the atomic nucleus of lead-208 is perfectly spherical. The ...

First Detection of an Ultra-High-Energy Neutrino

Feb. 12, 2025 — Scientists have just detected a neutrino that is thirty times more energetic than any previously detected anywhere in the world. This exceptional discovery opens up new perspectives for understanding ...

A Less 'Clumpy,' More Complex Universe?

Jan. 29, 2025 — New research has combined cosmological data from two major surveys of the universe's evolutionary history and found hints that it may be less clumpy at certain points than previously thought. Their ...

The Hidden Power of the Smallest Microquasars

Jan. 29, 2025 — Researchers found for the first time evidence that even microquasars containing a low-mass star are efficient particle accelerators, which leads to a significant impact on the interpretation of the ...

Fresh, Direct Evidence for Tiny Drops of Quark-Gluon Plasma

Jan. 15, 2025 — A new analysis of data from the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) reveals fresh evidence that collisions of even very small nuclei with large ones might create tiny ...

This Quasar May Have Helped Turn the Lights on for the Universe

Jan. 15, 2025 — Astronomers have detected an intensely brightening and dimming quasar that may help explain how some objects in the early universe grew at a highly accelerated rate. The discovery is the most distant ...

New Study Unveils Breakthrough in Understanding Cosmic Particle Accelerators

Jan. 13, 2025 — Scientists have come a step closer to understanding how collisionless shock waves -- found throughout the universe -- are able to accelerate particles to extreme ...

Light, Flexible and Radiation-Resistant: Organic Solar Cells for Space

Jan. 10, 2025 — Radiation testing suggests that solar cells made from carbon-based, or organic, materials could outperform conventional silicon and gallium arsenide for generating electricity in the final frontier, ...

Dark Energy 'Doesn't Exist' So Can't Be Pushing 'Lumpy' Universe Apart

Dec. 20, 2024 — One of the biggest mysteries in science -- dark energy -- doesn't actually exist, according to researchers looking to solve the riddle of how the Universe is expanding. For the past 100 years, ...

Astrophysicists Capture Astonishing Images of Gamma-Ray Flare from Supermassive Black Hole M87

Dec. 13, 2024 — The galaxy M87, located in the Virgo constellation, provided the first-ever photo of a black hole in 2019, when the Event Horizon Telescope captured an image of the supermassive black hole at the ...

Superflares Once Per Century

Dec. 12, 2024 — Stars similar to the Sun produce a gigantic outburst of radiation on average about once every hundred years per star. Such superflares release more energy than a trillion hydrogen bombs and make all ...

A New Discovery About the Source of the Vast Energy in Cosmic Rays

Dec. 10, 2024 — New research suggests that these ultra-high energy rays derive their energy from magnetic ...

Particle Research Gets Closer to Answering Why We're Here

Dec. 5, 2024 — Physicists have outlined the next 10 years of global research into the behavior of neutrinos, particles so tiny that they pass through virtually everything by the trillions every second at nearly the ...

Most Energetic Cosmic-Ray Electrons and Positrons Ever Observed

Nov. 25, 2024 — Scientists have recently identified electrons and positrons with the highest energies ever recorded on Earth. They provide evidence of cosmic processes emitting colossal amounts of energy, the ...

A Nearby Supernova Could End the Search for Dark Matter

Nov. 21, 2024 — Axions are the most likely candidate for enigmatic dark matter that dominates the universe. Astrophysicists are searching for evidence of high-mass axions produced during supernovae. Scientists ...

Possible Origins of Dark Matter in 'Dark Big Bang' Scenario

Nov. 18, 2024 — Recent research unlocks new clues that could radically change the world's understanding of the origin of dark ...

Interstellar Methane as Progenitor of Amino Acids?

Nov. 6, 2024 — Gamma radiation can convert methane into a wide variety of products at room temperature, including hydrocarbons, oxygen-containing molecules, and amino acids, reports a research team. This type of ...

Dance of Electrons Measured in the Glow from Exploding Neutron-Stars

Nov. 4, 2024 — The temperature of elementary particles has been observed in the radioactive glow following the collision of two neutron stars and the birth of a black hole. This has, for the first time, made it ...

New ESO Image Captures a Dark Wolf in the Sky

Oct. 31, 2024 — For Halloween, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reveals a spooktacular image of a dark nebula that creates the illusion of a wolf-like silhouette against a colourful cosmic backdrop. Fittingly ...

Seeing a Black Hole's Jet in a New Light

Oct. 28, 2024 — Researchers have pored over more than two decades' worth of data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory to show there's new knotty science to discover around black ...

Lightning Strikes Kick Off a Game of Electron Pinball in Space

Oct. 10, 2024 — When lightning cracks on Earth, especially high-energy electrons may fall out of Earth's inner radiation belt, according to a new study -- an electron 'rain' that could threaten ...

Influence of a Black Hole's Spin: First Evidence of Precession in Ultraluminous Accretion Disks

Oct. 7, 2024 — Researchers conducted innovative simulations of spinning black holes grounded in general relativity, which clarified that the ultraluminous accretion disk (i.e., gaseous spiral surrounding a black ...

Our Cosmic Neighborhood May Be 10x Larger

Sep. 27, 2024 — The Cosmicflows team has been studying the movements of 56,000 galaxies, revealing a potential shift in the scale of our galactic basin of ...

Early-Universe Quasar Neighborhoods Are Indeed Cluttered

Sep. 23, 2024 — Observations confirm astronomers' expectation that early-Universe quasars formed in regions of space densely populated with companion galaxies. DECam's exceptionally wide field of view and ...