Took me a while to find this:
High-energy (from 80 GeV to ~10 TeV) gamma rays arriving from far-distant quasars are used to estimate the extragalactic background light in the universe: The highest-energy rays interact more readily with the background light photons and thus the density of the background light may be estimated by analyzing the incoming gamma ray spectra
That's from Wiki. The significance is, if you have ever shown a light outdoors, and it wasn't cloudy, some of those photons made it out into space, and have added to the background light in our region of the galaxy. For instance, I recall several times as a child, shining a flashlight directly upwards while outdoors. Those photons are now 50 (!) light years from earth, and are spread over an enormous area of space. That region of space is suffused with high energy gamma rays. And once in a very long while, essentially forever, one of those gamma ray photons is going to encounter one of my flashlight photons,
-or one of yours (!)-
and be scattered off into a new direction at a new energy. And maybe someday to be absorbed by an instrument in a far distant laboratory in a far distant galaxy and measured in furtherance of their scientific studies.
It's also possible, one of these altered high energy gamma ray photons might encounter a puddle of primordial ooze somewhere and spark a new life form.
I am not making this up.
High-energy (from 80 GeV to ~10 TeV) gamma rays arriving from far-distant quasars are used to estimate the extragalactic background light in the universe: The highest-energy rays interact more readily with the background light photons and thus the density of the background light may be estimated by analyzing the incoming gamma ray spectra
That's from Wiki. The significance is, if you have ever shown a light outdoors, and it wasn't cloudy, some of those photons made it out into space, and have added to the background light in our region of the galaxy. For instance, I recall several times as a child, shining a flashlight directly upwards while outdoors. Those photons are now 50 (!) light years from earth, and are spread over an enormous area of space. That region of space is suffused with high energy gamma rays. And once in a very long while, essentially forever, one of those gamma ray photons is going to encounter one of my flashlight photons,
-or one of yours (!)-
and be scattered off into a new direction at a new energy. And maybe someday to be absorbed by an instrument in a far distant laboratory in a far distant galaxy and measured in furtherance of their scientific studies.
It's also possible, one of these altered high energy gamma ray photons might encounter a puddle of primordial ooze somewhere and spark a new life form.
I am not making this up.
The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.
