From the cosmos to the core - They come from outer space

Some are born within the cozy confines of our solar system, surging forth when our sun flares up, as it routinely does, with geysers of plasma. Others have traveled from unfathomably distant reaches beyond our Milky Way galaxy, where stars at the end of their lives went supernova with mighty and sustained blasts. They are cosmic rays: streams of electrically charged subatomic particles that perpetually bombard Earth. When they hit the thick blanket of gas that surrounds and protects our planet, they collide with atoms and split into even tinier fragments that rain down to the ground. Physicists call these assortments of particles "air showers." One plentiful particle in these showers is the energetic muon. And here on Earth these infinitesimal specks of matter might be the answer to a very big problem called Fukushima.