University of Utah Physicist Miguel Mostafa (IMAGE)

University of Utah

University of Utah Physicist Miguel Mostafa

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University of Utah physicist Miguel Mostafa stands in Argentina by one of the Pierre Auger Observatory's 1,600 water tanks that detect "air showers" of particles generated when incoming cosmic rays hit Earth's upper atmosphere. Mostafa and some other Utah physicists are part of a collaboration of scientists from 90 research institutions in 17 nations that studies cosmic rays using the Pierre Auger Observatory. In a new study, the scientists say that ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays -- the most energetic particles in the universe -- come from extremely violent, supermassive black holes in the centers, or nuclei, of certain galaxies.

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University of Utah

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