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A visual explanation of how you have a connection to the universe: Light-speed particles from across the universe blast high-energy muons into our bodies. The higher you go, the more you get, as verified by this author during airline flights. Note the radiation meter’s alarm going off at about 33,000 feet.[/caption]
Here’s a cosmic connection between you and the rest of the universe that you might never have considered. Every second of every day of your life, you are bombarded by high-energy radiation from black holes in galactic cores, and from exploding stars, called supernovas.
Deep space far beyond our solar system, it turns out, is full of big, heavy particles, the atomic cores of elements like iron and uranium, that are moving at 99.99 percent of the speed of light. These chunky babies are accelerated up to highway speed from the most energetic, explosive events in the universe. Some of them fly from the remotest reaches of space and time, from the earliest-birthing galaxies thirteen billion years ago.
When those heavy, light-speed locomotives slam into our upper atmosphere like atomic freight trains hitting a brick wall, they turn into showers of particles called muons (MEW-onz). Those muons rain down into the lower atmosphere and even reach the earth’s surface.
Muons are like electrons, except they’re over 200 times heavier. Their extra weight makes them unstable. They want to become regular electrons, which live forever. So, in a few millionths of a second, every muon turns itself into a boatload of pure energy plus a tiny, left-over, immortal electron.
Our connection is that dozens of cosmic-origin muons convert themselves into electrons, and dump their radiation loads in our bodies every second. The palm of your hand alone sees several such radioactive muons decay every second. I know because years ago I measured those muon crack-ups in a palm-sized slab of Plexiglass in a basement physics-lab experiment at CU Denver.
Our bodies are bathed in muons from cosmic rays from galactic black holes and supernovas, wherever we go and whatever we do, throughout our lives. Go indoors or below ground; it makes no difference. Muons reach, and strike, all.
So like, wow.
Muons damage cellular DNA. Our bodies mostly repair the damage, but with the passage of years some broken DNA accumulates; it can become cancerous. The longer we live, the higher our cumulative risk. We can beat that risk, but only by dying young. Wink.
Cosmic-ray muons are more plentiful at higher altitudes. I’ve verified this with a radiation meter on boring, long-distance, high-altitude flights.
Watching the meter beats the in-flight entertainment package. Passengers and flight crews nowadays are so jaded, nobody even asks what I’m up to.
This month’s Night Skies picture shows some data from an Orlando-to-Denver flight. I monitored altitude with a GPS receiver while noting corresponding radiation rates.
Passing through Nederland’s altitude of 8000 feet (8 kft), cosmic radiation exceeds sea level by 40 percent. Exposure rate accelerates above 12 kft, and really takes off above 20 kft. At an airliner’s cruising altitude of 35 to 40 kft, the cosmic-origin radiation is about 20 times higher than at sea level.
Is that a problem? Radiation effects are lifetime-cumulative. The less radiation you get (including taking fewer airline flights) over-all, the lower your health risk. But you always get some unavoidable exposure. That’s true for radon gas; solar UV exposure; radiation from granites and sandstones; and cosmic rays.
I like the mountains; bring on the muons. Let’s hear it for getting clobbered by supercool things like black holes and supernovas.
In September skies:
The sun begins the month in Leo, entering Virgo on September 16. On the fall equinox (7:22 a.m. in Nederland on September 22), days equal nights at 12 hours each.
The moon’s dates are: New September 2; First Quarter September 11; Full (Harvest or Corn Moon) September 17; Last Quarter September 24.
The moon will be in the middle of a partial eclipse when it rises at 7:40 p.m. on September 17.
September Meteors: The epsilon-Perseid shower (parent an unknown retrograde comet with ~ 1,000 year period) peaks on September 9.
Best Sky Viewing Nights (Minimal Moon): September 1-11 and 24-30.
Sunset (Mid-Month): Deneb is nearly overhead in the east; Vega is overhead; and Altair is in the south-southeast. Hercules with its striking M-13 globular cluster is overhead. Sagittarius, with our galactic center, is low in the south.
Midnight (Mid-Month): Auriga (the Charioteer) with brilliant-white Capella is in the northeast. Perseus is high in the east. Pegasus is nearly overhead while Altair sets in the west.
Sunrise (Mid-Month): Orion is due south. Procyon (Star Before the Dog) is high in the southeast. Cetus (the Whale) is low in the southwest.
Mercury, in Leo, is low in the eastern sky before dawn, not easily seen.
Venus, in Virgo, is the Evening Star, very low in the west just after sunset.
Mars, in Gemini, rises at midnight and is high in the southeast at dawn.
Jupiter, in Taurus, rises at 11 p.m. and is above Mars and to its right at dawn.
Saturn is in Aquarius opposite the sun, rising in the east at sunset; high in the south at midnight; and setting in the west at sunrise.
Notable Space Missions: Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko returns to earth in late September, having spent a record-breaking three years in space on the International Space Station. The reusable Saturn V-class New Glenn heavy-lift launcher makes its first flight at the end of the month, from Cape Canaveral. If it works, the first stage will return and land itself on a barge in Port Canaveral while the second stage climbs to orbit.
Frank Sanders, a spectrum scientist at the U.S. Department of Commerce in Boulder, takes astronomy-related inquiries at backyardastronomy1@gmail.com.
