Black Hole Science

Go You Aussie Scientists
This article came in from Pleiades.

The Auger Collaboration - a team of 370 scientists from 17 nations including Australia - reported overnight in the journal Science that they had pinpointed the source of 25 cosmic rays, rare particles that travel across the universe at close to the speed of light.

“They almost certainly come from 'active galactic nuclei' or the centre of very active galaxies, powered by black holes,” said Auger member Roger Clay, a high-energy astrophysicist with the University of Adelaide.

“We're now debating if they're produced near the black hole or by energy coming from the black hole.”

According to his Auger colleague Alan Watson of Britain's University of Leeds, the finding opens a “new window” on the universe and is the start of a new form of astronomy - cosmic-ray astronomy.

Along with Adelaide University colleague Bruce Dawson, Professor Watson and other overseas scientists such as University of Chicago Nobel laureate James Cronin, Professor Clay was a founding member of the collaboration.

They pulled together $US50 million to build the world's largest cosmic-ray observatory.

Named after the French physicist who first observed the cosmic rays, the Pierre Auger Observatory comprises an array of 1500 detectors, spread across 3000 sq km in Argentina.

Although many low-energy cosmic rays, like those from the Sun, hit the observatory, only high-energy cosmic rays are not deflected by magnetic fields on their journey from source to earth.

Having detected these cosmic rays, Auger scientists hope to use them to probe magnetic fields, especially those between galaxies, something now not possible.

“We're desperate to know about magnetic fields because they fill the whole of the universe and they have energy,” said Professor Clay.

Not only do magnetic fields work with gravity to shape galaxies, but they may also be one of the most important forms of energy in the universe.

“We want to know where all the energy of the universe is,” Professor Clay said. “We want to have a list of it all.”

Oi, oi, oi.
We get parochial about these things down here where we don't even have a space policy worth writing about.