THE JOLLY BUCCANEERS

For more than 10 years the H.E.S.S. observatory in Namibia, run by an international collaboration of 42 institutions in 12 countries, has been mapping the center of our galaxy in very-high-energy gamma rays.

These gamma rays are produced by cosmic rays from the innermost region of the galaxy.

Artist’s impression of the giant molecular clouds surrounding the Galactic Centre, bombarded by very high energy protons accelerated in the vicinity of the central black hole and subsequently shining in gamma rays. Credit: © Dr Mark A. Garlick/ H.E.S.S. Collaboration

A detailed analysis of the latest H.E.S.S. data, published on 16 March 2016 in Nature, reveals for the first time a source of this cosmic radiation at energies never observed before in the Milky Way: the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, likely to accelerate cosmic rays to energies 100 times larger than those achieved at the largest terrestrial particle accelerator, the LHC at CERN.

To be continued on

http://m.phys.org/news/2016-03-source-galactic-cosmic-rays-unprecedented.html

This entry was posted on March 24, 2016 at 1:25 am and is filed under 2016, astronomy with tags CEA and CNRS, cosmic rays milky way, France, Galactic Centre, Germany, H.E.S.S. observatory in Namibia, MPIK Heidelberg, protons, electrons, atomic nuclei. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.