The AMS particle detector on the international space station
Nasa
A study of 11 years on particles and antiparticles near our sun unlocks the history of our solar system – and lifting new mysteries on the particles themselves.
“It's like when you enter a dark room and see a lot, a lot of new things,” said Samuel Ting at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Space is filled with energetic particles, which travel in gusts called Cosmic rays. When a cosmic radius enters the alpha magnetic spectrometer (AMS) spectrometer detector on the International space station (ISS), magnetic fields separate its particles according to their electrical loadThen the detector measures their masses and energies. This separation is crucial because it helps to identify the differences in behavior of a particle and antiparticleWho is identical except with an opposite charge, says Ting.
He and his colleagues from the AMS collaboration have analyzed more than 11 years of AMS data and found, surprisingly, that we do not know as much about the behavior of the particles as we thought. For example, the survey revealed trends in the number of particles over time and how different types of particles interacted with each other. There are more than 600 theoretical models which could possibly explain each of these trends – but none explains the two results simultaneously, explains Ting.
And the results of the survey may be important for more than unique particles. The researchers capture cosmic rays with different detectors for over a century because their changing properties could serve as records of the history of the solar system, says Jamie Rankin at Princeton University. But we have never had such a detailed understanding of how the solar cycle affects the shelves, she says.
This is because 11 years is the duration of a solar cycleThe collection of data for all this period captures all the repetitive variations in the magnetic field of the sun, which modifies the behavior of cosmic rays. Such a detailed investigation can become a key that unlocks a means of using cosmic rays for the “archeology of the solar system”, she says.
But where the cosmic rays come from is always mysterious, says Gavin Rowell at the University of Adelaide in Australia. “The measurements of the AMS particles come mainly from the outside of the solar system,” he says. The quantity of details present in the new analysis, including how the different particle nuclei in the cosmic rays behave, can help researchers focus on a more definitive theory of the origin of cosmic rays.
And there are other unanswered cosmic questions. “We do not see any antimatter in our world, so the fact that the AMS can observe antiprotons, for me, it is a great mystery,” said Ian Low at Northwestern university in Illinois. The origin of these antiparticles can be connected to mysterious dark matter Or otherwise go beyond our best current understanding of the cosmos, he says.
Ting and his colleagues are now working on upgrading AMS detector be able to detect even more particles – and coordinate with the astronauts who will help install it.
