To power the rays, Blandford says, an AGN's central black hole would have to produce a massive electric field very far from itself, because otherwise the cauldron of photons around the hole would scatter the cosmic rays and blunt their energy.

He adds researchers would never have guessed that black holes might have such powers if not for high-energy cosmic rays. "Nature does tricks we didn't know were possible," he says. "But it is happening and it's marvelous." Auger should eventually pinpoint the rays' origins definitively, he says. "They have the capacity to answer these questions beyond all reasonable doubt."

2 Comments

1. 1. LSoul3 12:31 PM 6/22/08

   There is a research to that of a gama ray that was able to past through metal to be transfered as a data form frmo one interception point to the other.

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2. 2. TreeLuvBurdpu 04:20 PM 7/19/08

   I like this article. Anything that has to do with physical extremes in the universe intrigues me. It seems like these news articles always have a couple of unclear sentences. "We're now convinced that they're not produced in the galaxy." Does he mean it's not produced in our galaxy, the Milky Way? "an AGN's central black hole would have to produce a massive electric field very far from itself." Unfortunately here these two sentences collude in their confusion. Are they saying that an Active Galactic Core, which is "in the galaxy" has to have have so much energy that it propels these particles from it's magnetic field from outside it's galaxy? When he says they are not produced in the galaxy is he talking about the AGN's galaxy?

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