Kazumasa Kawata, a researcher at the University of Tokyo’s Institute for Cosmic Ray Research in Kashiwa, Japan, stated that the discoveries made in this study would “provide new perspectives on the propagation, interaction processes, and origin of the highest-energy cosmic rays within our galaxy.”
The highest-energy cosmic rays ever detected carry kinetic energy equivalent to a baseball traveling at 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) or millions of times more energetic than particles produced in the largest particle collider on Earth.
To this day, the origin of cosmic rays remains unclear. Due to their electrically charged nature, cosmic rays, mostly consisting of protons, do not travel in a straight line but are deflected by magnetic fields in the universe. As a result, crucial information about their source is lost by the time they reach Earth.
By studying the number, distribution, and energy spectrum