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From: crummer@AEROSPACE.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Cosmic Rays and Background Radiation
Message-ID: <281@sri-arpa.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 17-Jun-85 20:49:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.281
Posted: Mon Jun 17 20:49:58 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Jun-85 03:18:16 EDT
Lines: 14

From:  Charlie Crummer <crummer@AEROSPACE.ARPA>

The 3 degree Kelvin background is universe-wide.  Cosmic rays are charged
particles or ions that get accelerated by some mysterious means or other
(Maybe Uri Geller or something.).  They have a spectrum of energies, of
course,  but some of them have truly large energies (like 10^20 Gev).
Where a typical high energy event generated by an accelerator will have 
maybe 15 prongs, a typical cosmic ray may have over 100 daughter particles.

  --Charlie

  P.S. Cosmic rays are NOT the background radiation.

  --C