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Article: Go to work on a cosmic ray
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- December 5, 1995
CopyrightCopyright 1995 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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As you read your Independent over breakfast, more invisible
rays will zap through it than you have cornflakes in your bowl. Day
and night, this torrent of rays indiscriminately blasts through
you, your home and everything around you.
Victor Hess, the Austrian physicist, discovered cosmic rays -
radiation that comes down from space - in 1912, while riding in a
hot-air balloon. Despite being known for more than 80 years, they
are one of science's greatest enigmas, says Professor Alan Watson
of Leeds University.
Scientists have little idea of where in space these rays come
from, or why they exist.
One puzzle has been to identify celestial "engines" powerful
enough to boost the subnuclear ...