Physicists have observed for the first time two distinct hot
spots that appear to be showering Earth with an excess of cosmic
rays. The discovery calls into question nearly a century of
understanding about galactic magnetic fields near our solar
system because it raises the possibility that an unknown source
or magnetic effect is responsible for these observations. Their
findings, published in the latest issue of the Physical Review
Letters, were obtained using the Milagro Gamma Ray Observatory,
a detector located at Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico that
allows monitoring of the northern sky on a 24-hour, 7-day-per-
week basis. The research team, comprised of researchers from
more than a dozen institutions, including New York University,
used the Milagro cosmic-ray observatory to peer into the sky
above the northern hemisphere for nearly seven years starting in
July 2000. The observatory is unique in that it monitors the
entire sky above the northern hemisphere. Because of its design
and field of view, Mi