Oh-My-God particle

As Oh- My- God particle or English Oh- My- God particle is a high-energy cosmic ray particles (probably a proton) referred to, which was observed on 15 October 1991 on Utah. It had an energy of. For comparison: Normal particles in cosmic rays have energies between 10 MeV and 10 GeV. The CERN LHC is designed for a maximum energy of the protons of 14 TeV, the times of the energy of the O -My- GOD particle.

The detector used was Fly 's Eye II at the University of Utah, which is about an hour 's drive from Salt Lake City at 40 ° N, 113 ° W. This detector, built like a fly's eye, looking at the night sky on moonless nights, the blue nitrogen fluorescence flashes that are caused by particles of cosmic rays when they hit nitrogen molecules.

After that about 15 other, similar observations of such high energy particles yet been made with the help of this detector.

Speed ​​and relativistic effects

The Oh- My- God particle had a speed of. This particle would thus only slower than a photon. Would the proton and a photon a light-year () to travel far, the photon would then only a gap of.

With this enormous speed would an observer to sit on the proton, the time pass more slowly. Would the proton traveling, for example Alpha Centauri, is 4.36 light years away, it would take for him only, for an outside observer but still about 4.36 years.

Origin

Since so fast particles as treated here due to various radiation pressures can not travel infinitely far across the room, but a maximum of 50 Mpc is limited region of origin. Candidates for the generation of such high-energy particles are radio galaxies, Seyfert galaxies and quasars, but such objects are all much further away than 50 Mpc.

The area of ​​origin is located at α = 5h 40m 48s ± 0h 2m, δ = 48 ° ± 6 °.