"Have You Ever Been Hit in the Head by a High Energy Particle from Outer Space?"

-
"Surely you have!"

I love this question and answer from APOD!

Check out this amazing graphic of the particle shower triggered by high energy "cosmic rays" from outer space when they hit our atmosphere!

Illustration Credit: Simon Swordy (U. Chicago), NASA
Cosmic rays are tiny particles (often protons) that come from outer space! Our sun emits them, especially during solar flares, but they also come from much farther away in our galaxy--like when distant stars explode! After they hit the top of the atmosphere they send out a cascade of other particles, as depicted by the wild Christmas tree-esque structures shown above. When they hit a cloud they may even be able to trigger lightning according to APOD!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Earth and Moon from a Stunning Perspective!!!!!!

-
Image
THIS IS NOT A COMPUTER SIMULATION. IT IS ABOUT A DOZEN PHOTOGRAPHS, TAKEN 2 HOURS APART, FROM 1 MILLION MILES AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   You're also seeing the far side of the moon--the one you NEVER see from Earth!           By NASA/EPIC - http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/from-a-million-miles-away-nasa-camera-shows-moon-crossing-face-of-earth (image link), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42115030 Friends, It's not everyday that I come across astronomical footage that absolutely floors me (well, maybe it is, actually...). Regardless, I discovered something just now that completely blew my mind. Read on: Back in 2015 SpaceX launched a satellite called the "Deep Space Climate Observatory" (aka DSCOVR) from Florida. Unlike most satellites, which go into Low Earth Orbi...
Read more

Why Don't Insects Get Hurt When they Fall??!!

-
Image
“You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes." -J.B.S. Haldan  Image from TeePublic Have you ever wondered why insects don't get hurt when they fall?! I know I've flicked bugs off of my shoulder and seen that they're totally fine when they land. If you flick a bug off of your shoulder, relative to their length, they're falling from the same height as a human flicked from the top of the Statue of Liberty! No human would survive that! How the heck do bugs??!! Before you read further, check out this awesome YouTube video which demonstrates and explains the topic really well! The answer is really quite wonderful to wrap your mind around, and is related to many other seemingly unrelated phenomena like why potatoes cook faster when you cut them into smaller pieces and why elepha...
Read more

Joe Wheeler's Musical Synesthesia

-
Image
Gentle Laviedaloca Science Reader, What follows is an essay I wrote back in 2012 about one of my best friends, Joe Wheeler. It was my final paper for a student-taught college class on one of Joe and my favorite bands, Radiohead. I conducted the interviews with him over Skype, as he was doing Peace Corps all the way over in Mongolia! But that's another story... Enjoy!! The Colors of Radiohead Joe Wheeler, a lad twenty-three years young hailing from Eugene, Oregon, was born with many gifts. He’s well-mannered, thoughtfully spoken, has keyhole-slits for pupils, and spits raps like a baseball player with a mouth full of sunflower seeds (bars!). But the focus of this paper will be another of Joe’s gifts, and how it relates to one of his favorite bands. Namely, his audio-visual synesthesia and the colors he sees when he listens to the music of Radiohead. Let’s set the stage for exploring Joe’s superpower with a little personal history. Joe first started seei...
Read more