International Space Station AMS particle detector
NASA
The 11 -year survey of particles near our sun and anti -particles has emerged the history of our solar system and causes a new mystery about the particles itself.
“It seems like I stepped into a dark room and saw a lot of new things.” Samuel Tin At Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Energy particles are filled in the space, which is moved by burst called cosmic rays. When the cosmic ray enters the Alpha Magnetic Difference (AMS) detector of the International Space Station (ISS), the magnetic field separates particles based on the charge, and the detector measures mass and energy. This separation is important because it helps to identify the differences between particles and their anti -particles.
AMS collaboration, and his colleagues, analyzed more than 11 years of AMS data, and found that we didn’t know much about the particle behavior as we thought. For example, this survey reveals how the number of particles tends to be over time and how different types of particles interact with each other. Ting says that there are more than 600 theoretical models that can explain each of these trends, but there is nothing to explain both surveys at the same time.
And the results of the survey may be important for more than a single particle. Researchers say that the changing characteristics may be useful as a record of the history of the solar system, so they are shooting cosmic rays with different detectors for more than a century. Jamie Lankin At Princeton University. However, she says that we have never understood how the solar cycle affects the light rays.
This is because 11 years is the length of one solar cycle, so collecting data during that period captures all repeated fluctuations in the sun magnetic field, and the behavior of cosmic rays changes. She says that such a detailed investigation can be a key to solving a method of using cosmic rays in “solar system archeology”.
However, he says that the cosmic ray itself is still mysterious. Gavin Lowell At Adelaide University in Australia. “The measured value of the particle AMS is essentially from outside the solar system,” he says. Detailed amounts of new analysis, including how different particle nuclei on the cosmic ray acts, may help researchers focus on more decisive theories of cosmic rays.
There is also a question of other unexplored universe. “It’s a big mystery for me that AMS can observe antiproton because we don’t see antimatters in our world.” Ian Low At Northwestern University, Illinois. He says that the origin of these anti -particles is connected to a mysterious dark substance, and otherwise it may be better than our current universe.
Ting and his colleagues are currently working on upgrading the AMS detector, can detect more particles, and are adjusted as astronauts who support the installation.
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Source: www.newscientist.com
