A century after the discovery of cosmic rays, scientists may have identified a hidden principle governing how these particles behave across the universe. Using data from the DAMPE space telescope, researchers discovered a common pattern shared by several types of high-energy cosmic particles, a finding published in Nature.
The result could help clarify how cosmic rays are accelerated and transported through space. For decades, researchers have debated the mechanisms behind these particles, which remain among the most energetic forms of matter ever observed.
Cosmic rays are charged particles traveling through the galaxy at extremely high energies. Scientists believe they originate from violent astrophysical phenomena including supernova explosions, pulsars, and jets emitted by black holes.
A Universal Pattern Appears in Cosmic Ray Data
The new research is based on data collected by DAMPE, the Dark Matter Particle Explorer launched in December 2015. Scientists spotted the same strange feature in several cosmic ray nuclei: the number of detected particles suddenly drops after a certain threshold, a phenomenon known as spectral softening.
According to the study, this sharper decline appears at around 15 TV, or teraelectron-volts. Rigidity describes how strongly a charged particle resists being bent by magnetic fields as it moves through space.
The same pattern showed up in different particles, from lightweight protons to much heavieriron nuclei. That caught researchers’ attention right away. Scientists have spent decades looking for signs that different cosmic rays might follow the same physical rule, and DAMPE may finally have revealed it.
Andrii Tykhonov, associate professor at the Department of Nuclear and Particle Physics at the University of Geneva and co-author of the study, said:
“Cosmic rays are primarily composed of protons, but also of helium, carbon, oxygen, and iron nuclei.” He added, “These particles are also categorised according to their energy: low, up to a few billion electron-volts; intermediate, from a few billion to several hundred billion electron-volts; and high, from 1,000 billion electron-volts and beyond.”
Scientists Find Support for Rigidity Theory
The DAMPE observations strongly support the idea that cosmic rays are shaped by rigidity rather than by energy per nucleon. As the researchers, older explanations based on energy divided by the number of nucleons do not match the new data very well.
The study reports a confidence level of 99.999% against those alternative models, giving scientists strong evidence that they may finally be moving in the right direction.
Researchers say the findings help narrow down how cosmic rays gain their enormous energy before crossing interstellar space. The results also put stricter limits on current models of particle acceleration in extreme astrophysical environments.
Scientists have been trying to answer that question for more than a century. Even today, the role played by magnetic fields, shock waves, and violent cosmic events is still widely debated.
Artificial Intelligence Helped Unlock the Discovery
According to information released by the university, researchers developedartificial intelligence techniques capable of reconstructing particle events recorded by the telescope.
The Geneva group also contributed to measurements involving proton and helium fluxes and participated in the analysis of carbon nuclei data. Alongside this work, the researchers led development of the Silicon-Tungsten Tracker, one of DAMPE’s central instruments.
The detector is used to reconstruct particle trajectories and determine the electric charge of incoming cosmic rays with high precision. Scientists involved in the mission say this capability proved essential for identifying the newly observed spectral softening pattern.
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