[3] The first observation of a cosmic ray particle with an energy exceeding 1.0×1020 eV (16 J) was made by John Linsley and Livio Scarsi at the Volcano Ranch experiment in New Mexico in 1962.
Since the first observation, by the University of Utah's Fly's Eye Cosmic Ray Detector, at least fifteen similar events have been recorded, confirming the phenomenon.
These high-energy particles have an estimated arrival rate of just 1 per square kilometer per century, therefore, in order to record a large number of these events, the Auger Observatory has created a detection area of 3,000 km2 (the size of Rhode Island) in Mendoza Province, western Argentina.
The Pierre Auger Observatory, in addition to obtaining directional information from the cluster of water-Cherenkov tanks used to observe the cosmic-ray-shower components, also has four telescopes trained on the night sky to observe fluorescence of the nitrogen molecules as the shower particles traverse the sky, giving further directional information on the original cosmic ray particle.
In September 2017, data from 12 years of observations from PAO supported an extragalactic source (outside of Earth's galaxy) for the origin of extremely high energy cosmic rays.
Due to the immense gravitational pressures from the neutron star, it is believed that small pockets of matter consisting of up, down, and strange quarks in equilibrium acting as a single hadron (as opposed to a number of Σ0 baryons).
Recent results from the Pierre Auger Observatory show that ultra-high-energy cosmic ray arrival directions appear to be correlated with extragalactic supermassive black holes at the center of nearby galaxies called active galactic nuclei (AGN).
Low-luminosity, intermittent Seyfert galaxies may meet the requirements with the formation of a linear accelerator several light years away from the nucleus, yet within their extended ion tori whose UV radiation ensures a supply of ionic contaminants.
Improved statistics by the Pierre Auger Observatory will be instrumental in identifying the presently tentative association of UHECRs (from the Local Universe) with Seyferts and LINERs.