Paragraph on “Cosmic Rays” complete paragraph for Class 9, Class 10, Class 11 and Class 12

Cosmic Rays

`Cosmic’ means universal and as the name suggests, these rays are universal but arc still a mystery to mankind since man cannot explain their origin. These rays have been in the Earth’s atmosphere since Earth was formed without effecting anything. They were discovered about 60 years ago when it was seen that a sealed container of air had electrical conductivity in it. The container was shielded with various kinds of material but the effect continued to exist. Some type of radiation was constantly entering the container irrespective of night or day, it was obvious that this radiation was not from the Sun since it was not effected by it. The scientists concluded that small atomic particles were constantly travelling in space and when some of these entered the Earth’s atmosphere they collided with other particles thus creating new particles. These new particles in turn collided with others thus creating a series of collisions called a ‘cosmic ray bombardment’. These particles then reached the Earth’s surface carrying with them a small amount of radiation.