The mysterious rays shooting at us from space

Cosmic rays are hitting us all the time. What are they?

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You may think the greatest mysteries of the universe exist way out there, at the edge of a black hole. But they actually surround us all the time and even sail right through our bodies.

One such mystery is cosmic rays, radiation from space made of tiny bits of atoms. Theyre not harmful to humans, but theyre perplexing physicists, who dont know where theyre coming from. Theyre super powerful many are much too powerful to have originated from our sun or an exploding star. And because they dont often travel in a straight line, its hard to pinpoint their true origin.

This video is based on Vox science reporter Brian Resnicks in-depth article about cosmic rays: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/7/16/17690740/cosmic-rays-universe-theory-science

For more on how cosmic rays can affect computers, check out Radiolabs podcast Bit Flip https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/bit-flip

If you want to watch more videos like this, check out our friends at Verge Science. They do a ton of hands-on experiments and explorations into the future of science: https://www.youtube.com/vergescience

Note: The headline for this video has been updated since publishing.
Previous headline: We caught a cosmic ray, one of sciences biggest mysteries

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