{"id":862543,"date":"2026-08-18T13:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T13:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/862543\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T13:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T13:16:11","slug":"astronomers-detect-a-cosmic-source-firing-changing-gamma-rays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/862543\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers Detect a Cosmic Source Firing Changing Gamma Rays"},"content":{"rendered":"

Astronomers have long suspected that some of the universe\u2019s most powerful particle accelerators<\/a> lurk in binary star systems. Now, the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) in China has revealed that Cygnus X-3, a peculiar binary system<\/a> in the constellation Cygnus, is the highest-energy gamma-ray<\/a> source ever detected.<\/p>\n

The study, published in National Science Review, shows that Cygnus X-3 produces cosmic rays with energies reaching at least 30 petaelectronvolts (PeV), far beyond what current theories predict for sources inside our galaxy. For comparison, one PeV equals a million billion electronvolts, an energy scale that dwarfs even the most powerful human-made accelerators.<\/p>\n

LHAASO detected flaring activity in ultra-high-energy gamma rays<\/a> (above 10\u00b9\u2074 eV) that matched signals seen in the much lower-energy GeV band by NASA\u2019s Fermi satellite. Both sets of signals pulsed with a 4.8-hour periodicity, reflecting the binary system\u2019s orbital motion<\/a>. This correlation allowed scientists to pinpoint the accelerator\u2019s location to within a region only three times the size of the Sun, an unprecedented precision for such extreme phenomena.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis study confirms Cygnus X-3 as the first ultra-high-energy gamma-ray source with temporal variability,\u201d the researchers reported.<\/p>\n

Hubble captured a very beautiful image of Cygnus supernova<\/a><\/p>\n

That variability opens the door to a new field: time-domain astronomy at ultra-high energies, where scientists can track how cosmic accelerators change over hours or days.<\/p>\n

Cygnus X-3 is thought to contain a compact object, likely a black hole or neutron star, locked in orbit with a massive companion star<\/a>. The system\u2019s intense environment appears capable of hurling particles to energies that challenge existing models of Galactic accelerators.<\/p>\n

The discovery has profound implications for multi-messenger astronomy, which combines signals from light, particles, and gravitational waves to study the universe. By confirming Cygnus X-3 as a source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, researchers gain a new laboratory for probing the physics near compact objects and for understanding how the galaxy\u2019s most extreme accelerators operate.<\/p>\n

Journal Reference:<\/p>\n

Zhen Cao, Felix Aharonian, Yun-Xiang Bai et al. Cygnus X-3: A variable petaelectronvolt \u03b3-ray source. National Science Review. DOI: 10.1093\/nsr\/nwag435<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers have long suspected that some of the universe\u2019s most powerful particle accelerators lurk in binary star systems.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,4285,40902,66],"class_list":["post-862543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-galaxy","tag-gamma-rays","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}