Imagine you're a chin strap penguin and you are in dire need of a nap, but at what cost?

So there is a treadoff between being awake and vigilant and being sleeping and

having the benefit of sleep.

It's Monday, December 18th and oh, would you look at that it's science Friday.

I'm Scifry producer Russia Arredi and we've got a double feature for you today.

A bit later we'll dive into the strange sleeping habits of

chin-strap penguins who take thousands of naps a day. Must be nice. But before we get

there straight out of a sci-fi flick,

how researchers are trying to make sense of a mysterious cosmic ray.

Have you ever heard of the Oh My God particle?

Me neither. But physicists love to give subatomic particles cool names.

And back in 1992 when they discovered the highest energy cosmic ray ever discovered, they christened it as the oh my god particle because it was really powerful and really mysterious.

They had no explanation for it, hence O.M.G. Fast forward to around two years ago, sensors in Utah

desert detect the arrival of a second very high energy cosmic ray, the second most powerful they've ever seen.

And while the researchers are convinced that the cosmic ray was real, many aspects of the

event don't really make sense. It's more powerful than anything we can make on

earth and seems to come from nowhere in the sky. The researchers recently described their

observations in the journal Science.

Joining me now to talk about the find is one of the co-authors of that report.

Dr. John Matthews, research professor in physics and astronomy,

manager of the Cosmic Ray Physics Program

at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

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