
Oh-My-God particle - markmassie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle
======
batbomb
I worked on the child and grandchild of this experiment, HiRes and Telescope
Array as an undergraduate and a bit as a postgraduate at the University of
Utah. Currently I work with the Fermi Gamma-Ray space telescope as a "science
janitor".

The reason it's called the Oh-My-God particle is because it kind of smashed
through the GZK limit (
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greisen%E2%80%93Zatsepin%E2%80%...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greisen%E2%80%93Zatsepin%E2%80%93Kuzmin_limit)
)

There's a few particles near this energy hitting the earth every day, the flux
is just very, very low. This is why the follow up experiments to HiRes and
AGASA, the Auger and Telescope Array experiments, are very, very large.

Most research has started to gravitate towards the lower energy cosmic rays,
near 10^17 eV.

I can talk more about this but I got to go for now.

Experiments involved in UHECR research:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescope_Array_Project](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescope_Array_Project)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Resolution_Fly%27s_Eye_Cos...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Resolution_Fly%27s_Eye_Cosmic_Ray_Detector)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Auger_Observatory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Auger_Observatory)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akeno_Giant_Air_Shower_Array](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akeno_Giant_Air_Shower_Array)

Fun facts about Dugway, home of Fly's Eye and HiRes:

Some jets at Dugway once bombed a prototype detector.

One of the HiRes detectors was just past some German Village buildings, which
was a mock-up of a German village in the Utah desert used for weapons research
in WWII.

~~~
niels_olson
> I can talk more about this but I got to go for now.

please do...

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Taniwha
The fact that the earth has seen these bombarding us regularly for millions of
years does rather imply that the whole "OMG the LHC will make a black hole"
panic was unfounded

~~~
serf
while I agree with the general sentiment that the idea that the LHC will
create a blackhole is silly, surely there is a difference between _creating_
such a particle and simply being in the trajectory of a particle that has
already been created.

~~~
lotsofmangos
The idea that it would create a black hole isn't silly, it could well do. The
silly bit is the thought that it would be dangerous if it did, given particle
collisions at higher energies than the LHC happen regularly in the atmosphere
and there is nothing particularly special about the LHC ones, bar the fact
they are in a massive detector.

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Moral_
The article kinda lackluster in regards to information. Is there any more
information on where this type of particle originated(s) from? It says from
space, but supernova, black hole, stars, aliens?

~~~
windsurfer
Considering it's practically the speed of light, one needs only to figure out
the direction the particle was travelling in and point a telescope in the
opposite direction. You will be able to see whatever it was that created it
within 3 microseconds of the particle's creation.

EDIT: calculation error

~~~
logicallee
On the other hand, if it was created in an ephemeral event you have an
absolute maximum of 300 nanoseconds to point your telescope at it :) (taking
your number on faith)

~~~
windsurfer
Oops, I did it wrong. I skipped a zero.

They state that the particle differs from light by 1 cm every 220,000 years.
Considering the age of the universe is about 14 billion years, that works out
to 63636 cm. It takes light 2210 nanoseconds to cover that distance.

[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=light+over+%2814+billi...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=light+over+%2814+billion+%2F220000%29+cm)

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stox
My favorite particle: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oops-
Leon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oops-Leon)

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hcarvalhoalves
Okay, so what kind of cosmic phenomena causes a particle _with mass_ to
accelerate to such a ridiculous speed?

That seems like the more interesting point not touched by the article.

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elwell
What happens when two Oh-My-God particles collide?

~~~
elorant
If you could record the collision it could give you a glimpse into the string
theory. Wouldn’t that be something!

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csdrane
What would happen to someone if it hit their skin?

~~~
ctdonath
"kinetic energy equal to that of ... a 5-ounce (142 g) baseball traveling at
about 100 kilometers per hour (60 mph)"

Probably wouldn't notice a thing. You're mostly empty space (on a subatomic
level), odds are it wouldn't hit anything, and would just release no more
energy than getting hit by a baseball if it did. Sure it's a stunning amount
of energy _for such a small object_ , but not much on a human scale. Compare
getting hit with a bullet: penetration is damaging only because of what it
tears up in the process, when the energy involved (demonstrated by getting
shot while wearing a bulletproof vest) is little more than a solid kick. A
"hole" of subatomic width doesn't do much damage.

~~~
dredmorbius
The energy content is significant, but it would have to be both _transferred_
and _absorbed_.

As you note, odds of it interacting with some bit of you are relatively low. I
disagree with your baseball comparison, as _the result of the collision would
be a cascade of secondary particles_. Each of which would likely have only a
small chance of interacting with _yet another_ bit of you before exiting your
body.

The net result would be something like firing a cannonball (or bullet) at a
series of bead curtains. Most of the time, the bullet would miss. Occasionally
it might strike one or more beads. Those then would also mostly miss the other
beads within the curtain, though some might strike and cause secondary
effects. Most of the energy would simply transit the curtain system as a
whole. Or maybe even at sheets of laced (punched-out) tissue paper. The target
simply doesn't have the capability to absorb the energy of the particle.

A more accurate answer would require some subatomic particle modeling, past my
pay grade.

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abandonliberty
so what happens when this particle collides? Can you access the 60mph baseball
energy and take out a bird? Just extremely unlikely.

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kimonos
Cool name!

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barkingcat
These are emanations from vulcan warpships travelling through our solar
system.

~~~
krapp
Don't be silly. It's probably Romulan ships with a faulty waveguide around the
artificial singularity core. Vulcan warp signatures look entirely different,
and mostly radiate into subspace.

