First Principles 4.0 – Inside Stars

Well, we pulled our heads out of our slacker haze and managed to post a new podcast on the feed! It’s a First Principles® episode about stars.

First Principles 4.0 – Inside Stars (MP3 file, 26.7MB, 28:24)

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Black Hole Rays

The BBC is reporting that Science is reporting that scientists are reporting that:

Black holes are the most likely source of the mysterious ultra high-energy cosmic rays that bombard the planet… Observations at the world’s largest cosmic ray detector suggest the particles are emitted by huge black holes in the middle of nearby galaxies. 

Cosmic rays are a pain in the ass for spectroscopy, astrophotography and other CCD-based astronomy. Especially spectroscopy is plagued by cosmic rays. There are 3 kinds of cosmic rays that I’m aware of, electrons, protons and Helium nuclei (or alpha particles). The cosmic rays discussed in this article are high-energy and create a shower of interactions when they slam into the earth’s atmosphere.Pretty cool that we are starting to see results out of the Pierre Auger Observatory.