Absolute Justice, Kindness and Kinship — Page 45
— Part I 44 secondary cosmic rays. These secondary cosmic rays include subatomic particles such as electrons, positrons, mesons, neutrinos, as well as photons. Highly energetic secondary cosmic rays interact with other nuclei in the atmosphere and generate still more secondary cosmic rays. Such successive collisions and the resultant proliferation of cosmic rays is termed as the cascade shower. Cosmic radiation originally received the attention of the scientists simply because the phenomena posed a challenge to their understanding. The cosmic rays acquired great importance because of their influence on many areas of the life-support system on the earth. In fact human life on earth largely depends on secondary cosmic rays. They play a primary role in the making of chlorophyll in plants which is the pigment that gives them their green colour. Chlorophyll plays an essential role in photosynthesis, the process through which elements like carbon, oxygen and hydrogen are converted into such complex organic materials as constitute all forms of vegetative products. Starting from the root, leaves, stem, flowers and fruit, all owe their existence to the role of chlorophyll which works as an efficient factory run with combined energies of the sun’s rays and secondary cosmic rays. These secondary cosmic rays are highly penetrating and will pass through a great thickness of lead. They have been detected, still travelling