Anomalous cosmic rays (ACRs) are cosmic rays with unexpectedly low energies. They are thought to be created at the edge of our solar system, where the solar wind collides with the interstellar medium at the border between the heliosphere and the IM. Galactic cosmic rays which hit the shock front of the solar wind may be decelerated, resulting in its transformation into a lower-energy anomalous cosmic ray.
External link
Anomalous cosmic ray hydrogen spectra from Voyager 1 and 2 (http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/features/bios/christian/anomalous.html)
In astrophysics, cosmicrays are radiation consisting of energetic particles originating beyond the Earth that impinge on the Earth's atmosphere.
Cosmicrays are composed mainly of ionized nuclei, roughly 87% protons, 12% alpha particles (helium nuclei) and most of the rest being made up of heavier atomic nuclei.
Cosmicrays, also known as cosmic particles, were initially believed to originate in radioactive isotopes in the ground.
Cosmicrays were first found to be of extraterrestrial origin by Victor F. Hess (c.1912) when he recorded them with electrometers carried to high altitudes in balloons, an achievement for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1936.
Cosmicrays are composed mainly of bare nuclei, roughly 87% protons, 12% alpha particles (helium nuclei) and most of the rest being made up of heavier atomic nuclei with relative abundances comparable to those found in the Sun.
Cosmicrays have been experimentally determined to be a potential modulating factor in cloud formation and by theoretical extrapolation to be a contributor of global warming.
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