AMS particle detector at international space station
NASA
The 11-year survey of particles and antiparticles near our Sun is unlocking the history of our solar system-and increasing new mysteries about particles.
“This is when you walk in a dark room and see many, many new things,” says Samuel Ting At Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The space is filled with energetic particles, which travel in a burst called cosmic rays. When a cosmic ray enters the International Space Station (ISS) alpha magnetic spectrometer (AMS) detector, the magnetic fields separate their particles based on their electric charge, and then the detector measures their mass and energies. This separation is important because it helps identify the difference in the behavior of a particle and its antipartical, which is the same in addition to the opposite charge, Ting says.
In AMS cooperation he and his colleagues analyzed and found more than 11 years of AMS data, surprisingly, that we do not know as much as the particle behavior as we thought. For example, the survey revealed the number of particles over time in the survey, and in those ways a variety of particles interacted with each other. Ting says that there are more than 600 theoretical models that may probably explain each of these trends – but no one simultaneously explains the two conclusions, says Ting.
And the results of the survey can matter for more than single particles. Researchers have been occupying cosmic rays with various detectors for more than a century because their changing qualities can serve as a record of the history of the solar system, Jamie rankin At the University of Princeton. She says that there has never been a detailed understanding of how the solar cycle affects rays.
This is because 11 years is the length of a solar cycle, so collecting data for that entire period captures all repeated changes in the Sun’s magnetic field, which changes the behavior of cosmic rays. Such a detailed survey can become an important that unlocks a way of using cosmic rays for “solar system archeology”.
But where cosmic rays come from themselves, are still mysterious, say Gavin roow At the University of Adelaide in Australia. “Particle AMS measures are essentially coming from outside the solar system,” they say. The amount of expansion present in the new analysis, which includes separate particle nuclei within cosmic rays, can help researchers to zero on the more definite principle of origin of cosmic rays.
And other unanswered cosmic questions. “We do not see antimators in our world, so the fact that AMS can inspect antiprotones, for me, it is a great secret,” Take Ian At Northwestern University in Illinois. The origin of those antiparticles may be associated with the mysterious dark material or otherwise it can be beyond our current best understanding of the universe.
Ting and their colleagues are now working on upgrading the AMS detector to detect even more particles – and coordinate with astronauts that will help install it.
Subject:
(Tagstotransite) Astrophysics (T) Solar System (T) Particle Physics
