Friday, March 27, 2009

Highest Energy Cosmic Ray Sources

CERN Courier published some time ago this news item:

Pierre Auger Observatory pinpoints source of mysterious highest-energy cosmic rays

I had already written about this fundamental finding, according to Science Magazine, the third most important discovery in 2006.

Now I want to play with parsecs for the Astronomy class some of us are teaching here in Chilpancingo for the International Year of Astronomy celebrations.

One of those sources is Centaurus A.. Therefore one could say something like this.

4.2 Mpc away a proton comes zipping through intergalactic space, then it hits a gaucho in the head, and makes his country famous!

Homework:

Should he be upset?

No seriously; do you think we have entered a new stage in Astronomy?

In another post I'll argue that we have; after you do your homework.

Hint: The answer has to do with measuring more accurately our Universe in the Mpc scale.

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