Cosmic ray

“ The cosmic ray Principal Investigator is Rochus E. Vogt of the California Institute of Technology. Vogt has measured cosmic rays from the ground, from balloons, and from spacecraft for many years. During 1977 and 1978 he served as Chief Scientist at JPL, and then assumed the job of directing the physics, mathematics, and astronomy programs at Caltech. Among his six Co-Investigators is Ed Stone, the Voyager Project Scientist.
Because the cosmic ray instrument was not directed principally toward measurements of the Jovian system, it is described only briefly. ”

“ The disintegration of the radium atom, making helium and lead and energy. And Millikan's old proof that his Cosmic Ray is generated when particles of electricity are united to form an atom."
"Fine! I thought you said you weren't a scientist." He glowed with pride. "But the method, in the new Cosmic Express, is simply to convert the matter to be carried into power, send it out as a radiant beam and focus the beam to convert it back into atoms at the destination."
"But the amount of energy must be terrific—"
"It is. You know short waves carry more energy than long ones. ”

“ Gary Lane and Flick Muldoon was apparently the transit of June 11, 2247 A.D.—Ed.
[2] Sir James Jeans' view of the cosmic rays is that they are causing the material universe to dissolve into radiation. "The whole of the available evidence," he writes, "seems to me to indicate that the change is, with possible insignificant exceptions, forever in the same direction—forever solid matter melts into insubstantial radiation, forever the tangible changes into the intangible ... there can be but one end to the universe ... ”

“ That which evoked the keenest interest, was the type of mechanism they had invented for the amplification of all sorts of cosmic rays, of solar light itself and even the most delicate and imperceptible emanations in the spectrum of remote stars. By a process of repercussion and concentration, such rays were compelled to afford power beyond that of steam or electricity. The magnified vibrations were employed in the breaking-up of atoms and in their re-construction. The breaking-up, it was soon learned, could be done in more than one way, according to the intensity of the vibration used. ”

“ And the ray feed released it without control; it released all the energy it could suck in from space about it, as one single beam of cosmic energy, somewhat lower than the regular cosmics, and it flashed out in a beam as solid matter.
There was air about the ship, and the air instantly exploded into atoms of a different sort, threw off their electrons, and were raised to the temperature at which no atom can exist, and became protons and electrons. But so rapidly was that coil sucking energy from space that space tended to close in about it, and in enormous spurts the energy flooded out. ”

“ For example, the outer boundary of the Earth’s magnetic field is pushed in by the solar wind to about 40,000 miles from the Earth on the sunward side. On the dark side, the field extends out much farther.
The solar wind was also known to have an apparent effect on the movement of cosmic rays. As the Sun spots increase in the regular 11-year cycle, the number of cosmic rays reaching the Earth from outside our solar system will decrease.
Mariner II found that streams of plasma are constantly flowing out from the Sun. ”

“ What is the dim monstrosity that shimmers across the stars, what hand is that to cradle planets, earth and mars. What misshapen gargantuan of nebulous formed flesh, hurls out its flood of darkness, the systems to enmesh. What is it walks across the universes chanting cosmic choruses with endless verses—what thing unutterable has visited our Earth long years ago, and now, tonite, returns, in the shadows lurking glow. ”

“ Those who are still doubting that our sun emits powerful cosmic rays evidently overlook that the solar disk, in whatever position it may be in the heavens, cuts off the radiations from beyond, replacing them by its own. ”

“ The greatest mistake is made in the appraisal of the energy of cosmic rays. In most cases the ionizing action is used as a criterion, which is useless, for the most powerful cosmic rays virtually do not ionize at all and leave no trace of their passage through the instrument. I have resorted to different means and methods and have found that the energy of the cosmic radiations impinging upon the earth from all sides is stupendous, such that if all of it were converted into heat the globe quickly would be melted and volatilized. ”

“ Suddenly we saw the katonator-beams strike.
Above us a new sun blazed forth, kindling like the striking of a cosmic match. Night fled around us, and day came flaring up into noonday brilliance, and beyond. Heat poured down upon us, brilliant rays of sunlight more intense than I had ever seen. The dome behind me sparkled and glistened in the incredible radiations from the stricken planet millions of miles away, and for a moment I could almost feel the fierce actinic waves of ultra-violet, cosmics and a thousand other super-spectral radiations. ”

“ It is well known that every star in the heavens sends forth perpetual radiations of light; which radiations in a given number of minutes, days, months, or years, reach our Earth. It depends of course on the distance between the particular star and our planet, as to how long these light-vibrations take to arrive here. One ray from some stars will occupy thousands of years in its course,—in fact, the original planet from which it fell may be swept out of existence before it has time to penetrate our atmosphere. ”

“ The light from our own ship has come back to us, due to the intense curvature of the space which encloses us. In normal space, a light ray would take hundreds of millions of years to travel all the way around the Universe and return to its point of origin. Theoretically, it would be possible to photograph our own Galaxy as it was thousands of millennia ago by the light which left it then and has traveled all the way around the curvature of space. ”

“ But Light is never known to follow crooked Passages nor to bend into the Shadow. For the fix'd Stars by the Interposition of any of the Planets cease to be seen. And so do the Parts of the Sun by the Interposition of the Moon, Mercury or Venus. The Rays which pass very near to the edges of any Body, are bent a little by the action of the Body, as we shew'd above; but this bending is not towards but from the Shadow, and is perform'd only in the passage of the Ray by the Body, and at a very small distance from it. So soon as the Ray is past the Body, it goes right on. ”

“ As I watched, fixing my view now on the space directly in our path, I saw that our disintegrator ray men were at work. Deep in the bowels of the Ertak, the moan of the ray generators had deepened in note; I could even feel the slight vibration beneath my feet. [122]
One of the meteorites slowly crumbled on top, the dust of disintegration hovering in a compact mass about the body. More and more of it melted away. The spinning motion grew irregular, eccentric, as the center of gravity was changed by the action of the ray. ”

“ Pressing always upon the turning sun's edge with the same great power, this mighty force-ray has made the sun rotate faster each day, has made its rotatory speed increase by the same amount each day. And since that great ray is still stabbing across the gulf from Neptune to the sun, is still accelerating the sun's spin, it is to that ray that we will owe the division of our sun into two parts, 137 days from now, and the consequent wrecking of our solar system! ”

“ By the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites the velocity of light is ascertained; and that velocity, in the aberration of the fixed stars, furnishes a direct proof of the real motion of the earth (N. 237) . The effects of the invisible rays of the spectrum are immediately connected with chemical action; and heat, forming a part of the solar ray, so essential to animated and inanimated existence, is too important an agent in the economy of creation not to hold a principal place in the connexion of physical sciences ”

“ When a ray of light enters obliquely into the atmosphere, instead of passing directly through, it bends a little downwards, so that the greater portion of the rays which thus enter the atmospheric mass, descend by inflection to the earth. We then enjoy the benefit of that light which would otherwise have been totally lost. We perceive the light of day an hour before the solar orb makes its appearance, and a portion of its light is still retained 59 when it has descended nearly eighteen degrees below our horizon. ”

“ The reflection of the rays of light is that property by which—after approaching the surfaces of bodies, they are thrown back, or repelled. It is in consequence of this property that all the objects around us, and all the diversified landscapes on our globe, are rendered visible. It is by light reflected from their surfaces that we perceive the planetary bodies and their satellites, the belts of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, the various objects which diversify the surface of the Moon, and all the bodies in the universe which have no light of their own. ”

“ If there were no other celestial bodies of very low temperature and very large dimensions which absorbed the heat of the bright suns, the dark celestial bodies, the meteorites, and the dark cosmical dust would soon be so strongly heated by solar radiation that they would themselves turn incandescent, and the whole dome of the sky would appear to us like one glowing vault whose hot radiation down to the earth would soon burn every living thing. ”

“ If each little bit of interval is zero, the sum of them all is zero, and so even distant parts of the same light ray have a zero interval. The course of a light ray is also a geodesic according to the definition. Thus we now have two empirical ways of discovering what are the geodesics in space-time, namely light rays and bodies moving freely. Among freely-moving bodies are included all which are not subject to constraints or to electromagnetic forces, that is to say, the sun, stars, planets and satellites, and also falling bodies on the earth, at least when they are falling in a vacuum. ”

“ We have found it filled with an activity that manifests itself not only in the motions of the heavenly bodies along their orbits, but which extends to their minutest parts, the molecules and atoms, whose vibrations furnish the radiant energy given off by sun and stars. Some of these activities, such as the motions of the heavenly bodies in their orbits, seem fitted to be of endless duration; while others, like the radiation of light and heat, are surely temporary, and sooner or later must come to an end and be replaced by something different. ”

“ Thousands of vast rings of solid particles circulate around the sun, and when our earth crosses any of these rings, and their particles enter our atmosphere with planetary velocity, the friction ignites them and we see falling stars. Comets' tails, the sun's corona, and the zodiacal light are three strange phenomena, which, [ 114] though wholly insoluble on any theory of gaseous formation, receive their intelligible explanation by means of excessively minute solid particles—microscopic cosmic dust—driven outward by the tremendous electrical repulsions that emanate from the sun. ”

“ For, viewing their surroundings through the vision plate, it seemed as if they swam through a sea of radiant light where every star was a beacon, each planet a steadfast buoy of glowing color. And in this gleaming pattern was a regularity, an orthodoxy as painstaking as if some master craftsman had allocated each glowing sphere with precise care.
Regularly discernible against the omnipresent back-drop of space were the solar galaxies, each a complete entity, aloof, removed from its fellows and confined to its own definite segment of space. Some galaxies were younger than others. ”

“ To the first hypothesis, it is objected that, if true, ‘light would not only spread itself in a direct line, but its motion would be transmitted in every direction like that of sound, and would convey the impression of luminous bodies in the regions of space beyond the obstacles that intervene to stop its progress.’ No wall or other opaque body could obstruct its course, if it undulated in every direction like sound; and it would be a necessary consequence, that we should have no night, nor any such phenomena as eclipses of the sun or moon, or of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. ”

“ These rays are one of the most marked features of the moon, as seen through a telescope. Oken speaks of mountains as the organs of a planet, and, certainly, these mountains may not inaptly be represented by a star-fish with its diverging rays. But now we can examine the mystery, and we find that the rays are trap-dykes, rising little, if at all, above the level of the general surface. They appear as bright rays through the telescope, merely because they reflect the light better than the rest of the plain. ”

“ Hopefully no one finds it problematic, that I treat a light ray almost as a ponderable body. That light rays possess all absolute properties of matter, can be seen at the phenomenon of aberration, which is only possible when light rays are really material. — And furthermore, we cannot think of things that exist and act on our senses, without having the properties of matter. ”

“ All the celestial bodies appear to be more elevated than they really are; because the rays of light, instead of moving through the atmosphere in straight lines, are continually inflected towards the earth. Light passing obliquely out of a rare into a denser medium, as from vacuum into air, or from air into water, is bent or refracted from its course towards a perpendicular to that point of the denser surface where the light enters it (N. 189) . ”