Evidence of cosmic-ray acceleration from a nearby supernova remnant

Cosmic rays seen at Earth show a wide range of particle energies, from 107 electron-volts (eV) to more than 1020 eV, the latter being about the same as the kinetic energy of a 450 gram football (soccer ball) being kicked across the pitch at about 8 meters per second. A plot of cosmic ray energies from the Milky Way galaxy often shows a fair amount of what scientists might call "structure"—interesting deviations from the underlying trend called "knees" and "ankles" that indicate new processes or methods of cosmic ray production taking place at that energy.