Meaning of Auger's Discovery

There were indications that the Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) were coming from specific regions of the sky, but there was no proof. Now there is proof.

UHECR are coming from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN).

This means that the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff is valid (50 Megaparsec (Mpc)).

The sources of these very energetic and rare objects are nearby by cosmic standards. The only way available to study them now is with the Auger observatory in Argentina. They are so rare that to detect several a year one needs big ground detectors, several thousand square miles. Thousands of water tanks permanently waiting for the next UHECR to show up. And what do we win by waiting?

We win a new telescope. This is likely one of the biggest advances in telescope science since Galileo first saw Jupiter's moons.

Here I explain why I believe this:

We literally have a new instrument, formed by immense parts. On Earth we have a big eye, Rhode Island size cosmic ray detector, in the sky we have huge AGNs in the center of some galaxies. These nuclei are the size of billions of solar masses collapsed in a huge black hole. From these massive but well localized objects come directly to us very energetic protons and other nuclei. One of those protons has as much energy as a full speed tennis ball. They have so much momentum that the magnetic fields in the tens of Mpcs between us and the AGNs are unable to change the direction of the cosmic ray. Therefore we know where the source is in the sky. This is the biggest object ever used by human beings to study the Universe.

Now we just have to understand, What message do these protons bring?