Mysterious High-Energy Cosmic Rays Spotted Near Earth

Scientists have recently found some of the most powerful cosmic rays ever. These aren't your typical rays; they're made of electrons and positrons, and they're incredibly energetic, reaching up to 40, 000 times the energy of visible light. The High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) observatory in Namibia spotted them. These rays lose energy as they travel, so their sources must be close by. But what's producing them? That's still a mystery. Cosmic rays can come from various sources like the sun, supernovas, and pulsars. But what's interesting about these high-energy rays is that they are likely coming from somewhere nearby, maybe just a few thousand light-years away. That's pretty close compared to the vast size of the Milky Way. The HESS observatory is quite special. It's a group of five large telescopes in Namibia that look for faint blue glow, called Cherenkov radiation, left by fast-moving particles. Over a decade, they collected data to create an energy spectrum of these rays in great detail. The more energetic the rays, the fewer there are, making it hard for smaller detectors to find them. But the presence of these high-energy particles suggests that some sources are nearby. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but knowing the needle is in a smaller stack.