Energy Disappears High In Atmosphere, Scientists Say

When cosmic rays smack into the Earth's atmosphere, part of the energy released seemingly disappears, entering a realm not measurable by current detectors. This energy possibly forms miniature black holes or is transferred to "particles" of gravity, called gravitons, which might leak into other dimensions, according to scientists at NASA and the University of Thessaloniki in Greece.

Demos Kazanas of Goddard and Argyris Nicolaidis of the department of theoretical physics at Thessaloniki described this notion at the joint meeting of the American Physical Society and the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society in Albuquerque, N.M.

New physics, which scientists hope to discover with the next generation of particle accelerators, may have already given us hints of its existence in the cosmic rays, essentially atomic particles hurling through space at nearly light speed, the scientists say.

For the complete article on the cosmic rays, go to: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/news-release/releases/2002/02-061.htm