Scientists Detect Extremely Rare, Mysterious Cosmic Ray (image: Unsplash)

Space scientists are currently wondering the mysterious origins of powerful cosmic rays, “an extremely rare, ultra-high-energy particle that they believe traveled to Earth from beyond the Milky Way galaxy,” CNN reports.

According to the authors of the new research published in the journal Science on Thursday, the energy of this subatomic particle is unnoticeable to the naked eye, and it equals to the “Oh-My-God” particle, the single most energetic cosmic ray found in 1991.

Cosmic rays are high-energy particles or clusters of particles that travel through space at nearly the speed of light. The high-energy ones believed to reach Earth from other galaxies and extragalactic sources.

John Matthews, study”s coauthor and a research professor at the University of Utah said: “If you hold out your hand, one (cosmic ray) goes through the palm of your hand every second, but those are really low-energy things.”

“When you get out to these really high-energy (cosmic rays), it’s more like one per square kilometer per century. It’s never going through your hand,” he added.

The origin of these ultra-high-energy particles is still an enigma to the researchers. They are believed to be part of the most energetic pheonmena in the universe, and scientists says that these cosmic rays carries tens of millions of times more energy than any human-made particle accelerator. The atmsophere secures humans from any damaging effects from the high-energy particles, it may sometimes cause issues on computer.

Amaterasu particle, a recently discovered particle was located by Telescope Array, a cosmic ray observatory in Utah’s West Desert.

(With inputs from CNN)