In a breakthrough, Israeli researchers have measured invisible particles known as cosmic rays deep inside a dust cloud 400 light-years from Earth.

The peer-reviewed study detecting these previously unobserved particles could help shed light on how stars are born in the galaxy.

“These cosmic rays are crucial for our understanding of the process of formation of new stars,” lead researcher Prof. Shmuel Bialy of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s Physics Faculty told The Times of Israel. “This just opened the door for a whole new field of research in modern astrophysics.”

Bialy’s international team used observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to measure infrared radiation from cosmic rays that had penetrated the gigantic nebula Barnard 68 in the faraway constellation Ophiuchus.

The research was published in Nature Astronomy on Wednesday.

“Nobody thought it would be possible to observe these cosmic rays because they were never seen before,” said Bialy. “Now, we show that it’s possible. We were the first to observe it, and the signal was strong and clear.”

“It is important to people on Earth because we’re researching how stars are formed,” said Amit Chemke, 27, a master’s student in Bialy’s group and co-author of the research paper. “Our Sun was formed billions of years ago, but how are other suns forming?”

Speaking to The Times of Israel, Chemke said that the term “cosmic rays” is “confusing”  because the rays are not radiation or connected to light.

They were discovered and then named by Victor F. Hess in 1912, and the name stuck.

“They are actually particles of matter — protons, electrons, and atomic nuclei,” Chemke said. “These high-energy particles are buzzing around the galaxy”........

© The Times of Israel