Antarctic Experiment Finds Puzzling Distribution of Cosmic Rays 119
pitchpipe writes "A puzzling pattern in the cosmic rays bombarding Earth from space has been discovered by an experiment buried deep under the ice of Antarctica. ... It turns out these particles are not arriving uniformly from all directions. The new study detected an overabundance of cosmic rays coming from one part of the sky, and a lack of cosmic rays coming from another." The map of this uneven distribution comes from the IceCube neutrino observatory last mentioned several days ago.
Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Scientists have called this part of the sky "The Sun".
Huzzah! (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately i'm sure there's a much more mundane explanation for the phenomenon which they will eventually discover.
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Re:Huzzah! (Score:4, Funny)
The centre of my universe is a couple of feet lower.
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Or he could be completely normal except for his huge cock.
Re:Huzzah! (Score:5, Interesting)
This universal reference exists and is known by scientists, google for cosmic microwave dipole [google.com].
Our galaxy is moving at 627 km/s in relation to the microwave background radiation of the universe, which is the nearest direct effect of the Big Bang that we can observe.
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i'm sick of people saying there's no center.
if you freeze time, every single piece of matter in the universe will be fixed in a single position. every single piece of matter can be 'reached' from every other piece of matter, though you'd have to travel for billions of years to get to some (remember time has stopped, so inflation has ceased). thus, every piece of matter could be given an xyz coordinate relative to the first piece of matter you decide to start measuring from.
you plot every xyz coordinate of e
Re:Huzzah! (Score:4, Informative)
This would be true only if the universe had an euclidean geometry.
This is hard to visualize in three dimensions, so let's start with a two-dimensional case. Imagine a perfectly flat horizontal surface. Any triangle you draw in that surface will have three internal angles that add up to 180 degrees. If you draw any finite number of points there you could take the average of the xy coordinates and define a "center" for that set of points.
Now imagine a curved surface, let's say the surface of the earth. Define a triangle like this: point A is at zero latitude, zero longitude. Point B is at zero latitude, 90 degrees West longitude. Point C is at the North Pole. This triangle has three angles of ninety degrees, adding up to 270 degrees.
How would you define a "center" for a set of points randomly distributed over the surface of the earth? You could do it only if those points were sufficiently close together so the surface between them could be approximated by a flat surface. You can talk about the center of a continent, but the center of the whole surface of the earth is undefined.
Imagine the same problem in a universe with three dimensions that's curved in a fourth dimension and you will understand a bit of what general relativity is all about.
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Imagine the same problem in a universe with three dimensions that's curved in a fourth dimension and you will understand a bit of what general relativity is all about.
More like a pseudo-understanding. It's a bad analogy. The fourth dimension is not spatial. It's temporal [wikipedia.org]. It was mathematically convenient to place time on the graph simultaneously. It also happens to reflect what special relativity indicates is the reality: that space and time are not independent. However time is not really the fourth dimension in the way that people usually think of it, in the way that a tesseract [wikipedia.org] is a four dimensional object, an object that can only be correctly measured using 4 spatial
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The fourth dimension is not spatial. It's temporal
You mean the fourth coordinate you use in Minkowski's formulae is temporal. Nobody is forced to ordinalize the dimensions used in their conceptual models by any given standard. For example, I learned coordinate systems from programming a TI-99/4a computer that addressed screen characters in "row/column" format. This became a stumbling block for me learning the cartesian (x,y) coordinate system, I kept wanting to notate the Y before the X. Their "first" dimention was my "second".
GP's "fourth" dimension isn't
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But as far as I know, the question is still unresolved. If space is curved in on itself, we could in fact go (with a spacecraft) a finite distance in one direction and arrive back where we started. If not, we'd just go on and on forever, at one point our spacecraft would overtake the current extent of matter and we'd pass into unoccupied space where the only thing left is radiation from the (slow) matter-filled part.
So the universe has no center is space is curved, but then only if the curvature is smaller
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jesus christ. either there is finite matter in the universe or there isn't. either at a single slice of time every piece of matter is in a fixed location or it isn't.
got a problem with that? there's a finite number of atoms in the universe, and they occupy a given point in space at a single planck interval of time? are either of those too hard for you to accept?
you can trace a line between every atom in the universe and every other atom in the universe. the length of those lines is irrelevant.
if you think t
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All of this is presuming that the rapid expansion phase of the Big Bang is in fact reality and that the Big Bang theory is in fact the correct cosmological theory for the origin of the universe.
Mind you, I'm not disputing the conclusion here nor even that this is the prevailing theory for the universe, but there are some postulates and presumptions to your discussion here which are unstated. With those presumptions, you are correct.
I'll admit that discovering a "center" to the universe would create some ve
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"to find a level of mechanics that would "overthrow" Einstein's relativity equations with something else (likely more complex still)."
I would contend that to properly 'overthrow' Einstein's relativity would require something much simpler. Einstein plus Newton is pretty accurate. To get more accurate you'd have to get closer to correct, Occam's Razor dictates that correct would need to be a simpler solution, not a more complex one.
There is nothing even close to simple or elegant about the current highly comp
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Nice discussion with mods voting (not moderating) the people who defend their favorite _theories_.
Just remember that when you're discussing the universe, you have to reference the universe. When you are referencing the universe then you have to keep it in the bounds of what we considder a universe. What we considder a universe is what is both inside logic and what defines logic.
Currently there is some discussion about the correct logic. What can be proven? Unless you have infinity at your disposal and follo
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I wasn't assuming the big bang or its rapid expansion phase. Read this [physorg.com]. I wasn't assuming that one either. The ideas work either way, and in many others.
Good points... this did not deserve a troll mod... (Score:2)
I don't understand mods here sometimes...
The idea of tracing lines in space is what got my attention as well. It's as if previous posters have forgotten that Euclidean geometry breaks down when you start talking about the universe.
Actually, it did. (Score:1)
I'll say it's a fair mod, and it was me that was modded troll. It's my bad luck to get a moderator who's got a poor sense of humor and also knows his stuff. I was going for funny, but the line between funny and troll is rather thin. Those darned astrophysicists are so darned literal, I should have expected it being as how this is slashdot and all.
I've complained about the moderation here before and there's a time for that, but this isn't one of those times.
Moderators: think a few times about the contex
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Wait, what!? You are saying that the post before mine deserved being modded a troll, when it provides new ideas and arguments that apply to the side discussion, but then address moderators and tell them to not jump the gun and mod something as off topic when it provides new information on a side discussion?
Which is it?
This is the first time that I've seen someone claiming that space is curved and that some parts of the universe have effectively lost to us is modded as a troll... and defended as a troll.
Ma
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Not that part. The part about Time being bi-curious (an allusion to variability/multidimsionality of time), the part about spacetime being potentially non-contiguous (unprovable at best), the part about stuff outside our light cone being outside our universe rather than just out of reach (the crux of a long-running religious flamewar). When I wrote that I knew I was trollin', and throwing all three into one post was unsubtle. I was just hoping to catch a moderator who thought it was funny, or a fellow sl
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I see. I was unaware of any "long-running religious flamewar" regarding anything that you wrote, and would have never have imagined that such ideas would be considered trolling...
However, I still don't necessarily see controversial ideas as being inherently trolling. Also, without being aware of any baggage regarding the ideas, I personally did find them very interesting.
I have learned my lesson today. Trolling on Slashdot apparently can be a lot more technical and subtle than I would have imagined.
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Mundane, meaning related to the Earth?
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It'll be Antarctic pigeons [scilogs.eu] nesting in the equipment.
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Unfortunately i'm sure there's a much more mundane explanation for the phenomenon which they will eventually discover.
You are probably right.
However when I read an article like this one, I do wonder what sort of interstellar drive would produce an exhaust or wake with these kinds of characteristics? It seems to me that today's astronomical discussions should include some comments on the possibility that what is being observed out there might not be a natural phenomenon.
Here's a thought (Score:5, Funny)
God went that-a-way
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Okay...so Armageddon is this-a-way?
Not ordinary Cosmic Rays (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:Is it the Earths magnetic field? (Score:5, Informative)
> I mean, it is what protects us from vasts amounts of cosmic rays...
No it isn't. The Earth's magnetic field has negligible effect on cosmic rays: they are far to energetic for it to influence them significantly. What protects us from cosmic rays is the atmosphere.
> ...maybe those differences account for a vast majority of this patterns?
The physicists will have already taken the small (but known) effect of the magnetic field into account.
> And the various celestial bodies that surround us (constantly deflecting
> this rays) account for the rest?
Celestial bodies do not surround us. The sun and the moon together cover less than 1/100,000th of the sky.
Re:Is it the Earths magnetic field? (Score:4, Insightful)
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From your own source:
So your statement that "[the Earth's magnetic field] is what protects us from vasts amounts of cosmic rays" is wrong. Sorry.
Re:Is it the Earths magnetic field? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm happy that it was phrased in the form of a question. Too often, the reaction to a bit of science that somebody doesn't wish to believe is simply rejection of it, perhaps combined with unsourced assertions (or assertions to un-peer-reviewed sources).
You don't have to know everything in science. There's too much to know. Ignorance is fine, as long as you're (a) aware of it, (b) curious, and (c) not going to fight against those who do know it.
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You must be new around these parts. Despite Slashdot's self image as a haven of the extremely smart and well educated... it's really not much better than any other random collection of people. A few at one end of the bell curve, a few at the other, and the bulk huddled comfortably under the hump in the middle. Only nowadays, with education (both formal and self) being rare - what's under the hump isn't all that remarkable.
Somehow there has arisen
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Why, because you assume every single person on this site is an expert on the subject of cosmic rays?
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The Earth's magnetic field has negligible effect on cosmic rays: they are far to energetic for it to influence them significantly.
I wonder why the researcher on the project doesn't rule out the magnetic field.
FTA: whether it's due to the magnetic field surrounding us or to the effect of a nearby supernova remnant, we don't know.
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> FTA: whether it's due to the magnetic field surrounding us or to the effect
> of a nearby supernova remnant, we don't know.
The cosmic rays will have travelled a long ways through interstellar space permeated by magnetic fields that, unlike that of the Earth, we don't have detailed maps of.
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There is a link between solar activity and cosmic rays and of course there is the interaction of the solar wind and our magnetic field, so in theory there is a pathway between cosmic rays and the Earth's magnetic field.
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... that should, of course, be "the _less_ solar activity, the more cosmic rays"
This is one of the good-fit hypothesises with regards to so-called "global warming". Less active sun = more cosmic rays = more clouds = less heat.
The warming would then come from the combined effects of the solar cycles in the latter part of the 20th century which were the strongest in recorded history. The difference from currently debunked solar theories is that it's not the TSI (visible solar output) that effects the climate,
Re:Is it the Earths magnetic field? (Score:5, Informative)
No it isn't. The Earth's magnetic field has negligible effect on cosmic rays: they are far to energetic for it to influence them significantly. What protects us from cosmic rays is the atmosphere.
This is incorrect. The International Space Station has a significantly lower cosmic radiation environment due to the Earth's magnetic field. However, the cosmic rays that are energetic enough to be detected under a few hundred meters of ice can easily punch through the Earth's magnetic field.
Celestial bodies do not surround us. The sun and the moon together cover less than 1/100,000th of the sky.
Indeed. The heliosphere might, due to its vast size (and its shock interaction with the galactic medium is apparently a known source of cosmic rays), be an intermediate filter with enough pull to distort the path of incoming cosmic rays.
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The Earth's magnetic field shields it from solar "cosmic" rays and probably some secondary galactic ones. The primaries, however, are so energetic that they are merely deflected a bit. What does stop a lot of primaries is the field embedded in the solar wind. Since the heliosphere is asymmetric and poorly mapped this may very well account for the observed asymmetry. I concede that
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Celestial bodies do not surround us. The sun and the moon together cover less than 1/100,000th of the sky.
Really? so you are saying the universe is flat, and the earth is off in a corner where nothing but the sun and moon are around it?
Seems to me, that the universe is in at least 3 Dimensions, and no matter which direction we go, we are going to hit some "celestial" body.
And considering Celestial bodies means naturally occurring physical entities, associations or structures that current science has demonstrated to exist in outer space, but not including earth, seems that maybe your a bit wrong on your last pa
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> Seems to me, that the universe is in at least 3 Dimensions, and no matter
> which direction we go, we are going to hit some "celestial" body.
Since all but a negligible fraction of all the celestial bodies in the universe are stars that would mean that the entire sky would glow at the surface temperature of the average star since no matter where you looked you would be looking directly at the surface of a star.
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You have rediscovered Olber's Paradox.
Re:Is it the Earths magnetic field? (Score:4, Insightful)
The sun and the moon together cover less than 1/100,000th of the sky.
Really? so you are saying the universe is flat, and the earth is off in a corner where nothing but the sun and moon are around it?
Is the sky flat where you live?
"and no matter which direction we go, we are going to hit some "celestial" body."
Nope, space is pretty much just space. Galaxies commonly collide with each other but the stars within those collisions very rarely smash into each other. It's not that there is any shortage of celestial bodies it's just that space is really, really, big.
There's also the fact that ALL of the celestial bodies are contained within the microwave background, so why is it that we can see the microwave background if every direction is obscured with a celestial body?
I propose (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Did they discover any mountains too? (Score:5, Informative)
R'lyeh is in the south pacific. Pnakoticos is in the Australian desert. Irem is in Saudia Arabia. Unfortunately, the Pentagonally Symmetrical Elder Things named their last surface city 'Can'ned'spham', which is why the Shoggoths ate them.
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R'lyeh is in the south pacific. Pnakoticos is in the Australian desert. Irem is in Saudia Arabia. Unfortunately, the Pentagonally Symmetrical Elder Things named their last surface city 'Can'ned'spham', which is why the Shoggoths ate them.
It just makes my day that this is modded Score: 5, Informative!
crap article (Score:5, Funny)
Interplanetary Magnietic Field Lines? (Score:1)
Re:Interplanetary Magnietic Field Lines? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Earth's magnetic field is well mapped. The physicists will already have taken it into consideration.
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What isn't well mapped is the galactic magnetic field.
Several Days Ago? (Score:2)
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that's because all the new editing standards at Slashdot designed to have less duplicate stories.
If those new standards weren't in place, this would be the second or third posting of the article.
With enough detailed measurements (Score:1)
Aliens (Score:1)
Time for the seti guys to try to break the compression algorithm - so that we can get communicating.
Stargate (Score:1, Funny)
Its something to do with the second stargate, or the other ancient base in antarctica..
Earthbound particles? (Score:2)
Maybe what they're measuring is coming from Earth's core..
(No, I didn't RTFA)
It's one of those 'hmm' deals..
Smoking gun (Score:2)
...also, it scares me when scientists get visibly excited over the possibility of a 'smoking gun'.
Self-serving science is bad karma
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Why? Observational evidence is one of the central pillars of science, no?
Self-serving science is bad karma
Yes, fucking selfish bastards! Who do they think they are, sharing an intriging observation they can't explain.
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Yeah, you probably should have read the fucking article. The detection in this case amounts to an accident.
SETI fan fiction (Score:2)
I looked at the image and the cosmic rays seem to be lacking only in a small area of the whole measurement. Maybe somebody in a galaxy far far away is blocking the cosmic rays en masse with a bunch of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere [wikipedia.org] (as in colonization of one or multiple galaxies).
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Maybe somebody in a galaxy far far away is blocking the cosmic rays en masse with a bunch of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere [wikipedia.org] (as in colonization of one or multiple galaxies).
We know about these remote stars and galaxies because we can see them, which means they're not in a Dyson sphere.
I never knew (Score:2)
My man Ice Cube was into observing subatomic particles.
Its due to ... (Score:2)
This proves the stars are not evenly distributed? (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe it is an image of the Virgin Mary? (Score:1)
Maybe (Score:2)
Maybe the doctor got something wrong with the Pandorica
Bussard Ramjet. (Score:1)
It's just a spaceships' (probably a Bussard Ramjet's) exhaust.
WMAP cold spot? (Score:2)
It would be spooky if the region of space with fewer cosmic rays coincided with the WMAP cold spot [nrao.edu].
Transformer (Score:1)
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Look around you.
Look... around you.
Look... around you. ...
How DO scientists sift through this data? They insert the assembled facts into a wave function graphing device.
Note that down in your copybook.
The device is powered by 2 icktoms of intelligent calcium and a green anole.
(addressing anole, paper lab jacket is visibly taped to the lizard's back) Hello, Professor!
When the functions display a wave on the screen of the osomoscope, the scientists interpret the signal. How do the scientists interpret it?
We m
Re:Scientists: (Score:5, Funny)
Look. Around. You.
Have you guessed what we're looking for, yet? Yes, that's right - it's computer programming.
[ MAN SITTING AT TYPEWRITER ]
This man is writing a computer programme. A computer programme is like a script that tells a computer what to do. Like people, computers understand different languages - some examples of computer languages are:
* C
* PASCAL
* BASIC
* C double-plus
* C triple-plus
* C detuned bassoon
* Norwegian
Your school computer is probably a BBC Microcomputerisation Engine and, therefore, understands a dialect of BASIC known as 'HyperFrench.'
Make a note of this in your copybook... now.
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and it's all on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=look+around+you [youtube.com]
I love Look Around You. It's a nonsense-filled educational program spoof about science. Cartoon Network showed the second season in their Adult Swim lineup a couple years ago. The first and second seasons have different formats and intros and music, and the "next episode" bits allude to shows that don't exist. Series 1 episodes are shorter and more abstract "in the classroom" type videos. Series 2 are longer format docu
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Except that the detector is for detecting neutrinos. They have no charge. Not only that but they are not expected to interact with the earth's magnetic fields according to the current theory. If only there were some sort of "article" that might have this kind of information in a form that is easy to "read" with a convenient "hyper-link" to lead us to it.
Sheesh... if only we had some sort of "moderators" who might understand this. "interesting" my ass.
Not neutrinos. (Score:3, Informative)
While it's true that IceCube is designed to be a neutrino telescope, the observations here involve more common and easier to detect cosmic rays (e.g. gamma rays), coming from the southern half of the sky.
See, when IceCube is looking for neutrinos, they look for signals coming from beneath the northern part of the sky. They are essentially using the entire planet earth as a filter for cosmic rays since they can't pass through that much solid material, while neutrinos can with ease. Neutrinos don't interact
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This post becomes weird when IceCube brings up a different reference...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Cube [wikipedia.org]
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Oh. Well, if it's according to current theory, that's OK then.
For 30 some years of my life, I was told (by current theory) they were massless. Matter of fact, current theory still doesn't have a good number for neutrino mass.
While the Standard Model might have a lot in the way of predictive power, it doesn't have a lot in the way of explanatory power. How about you just add