MALARGÜE, Argentina -- Scientists of the Pierre Auger Collaboration announced today (Nov. 8) that active galactic nuclei are the most likely candidate for the source of the highest-energy cosmic rays that hit Earth. Using the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, the largest cosmic-ray observatory in the world, a team of scientists from 17 countries found that the sources of the highest-energy particles are not distributed uniformly across the sky. Instead, the Auger results link the origins of these mysterious particles to the locations of nearby galaxies that have active nuclei in their centers.

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http://www.auger.org/media
http://www.auger.org/news/PRagn/AGN_correlation.html
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/presspass/press_releases/auger_mystery_release110807.html