Cosmic Ray Observatory
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Cosmic Ray Observatory
A cosmic-ray observatory is a scientific installation built to detect high-energy-particles coming from space called cosmic rays. This typically includes photons (high-energy light), electrons, protons, and some heavier nuclei, as well as antimatter particles. About 90% of cosmic rays are protons, 9% are alpha particles, and the remaining ~1% are other particles. It is not yet possible to build image forming optics for cosmic rays, like a Wolter telescope for lower energy X-rays, although some cosmic-ray observatories also look for high energy gamma rays and x-rays. Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHEC) pose further detection problems. One way of learning about cosmic rays is using different detectors to observe aspects of a cosmic ray air shower. Methods of detection for gamma-rays: * Scintillation detectors * Solid state detectors * Compton scattering * Pair telescopes * Air Cherenkov detectors For example, while a visible light photon may have an energy of a few eV, a ...
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Shower Detection
A shower is a place in which a person bathes under a spray of typically warm or hot water. Indoors, there is a drain in the floor. Most showers have temperature, spray pressure and adjustable showerhead nozzle. The simplest showers have a swivelling nozzle aiming down on the user, while more complex showers have a showerhead connected to a hose that has a mounting bracket. This allows the showerer to hold the showerhead by hand to spray the water onto different parts of their body. A shower can be installed in a small shower stall or bathtub with a plastic shower curtain or door. Showering is common in Western culture due to the efficiency of using it compared with a bathtub. Its use in hygiene is, therefore, common practice. History The original showers were neither indoor structures nor man-made but were common natural formations: waterfalls. The falling water rinsed the bathers completely clean and was more efficient than bathing in a traditional basin, which required m ...
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National Air And Space Museum
The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the National Mall near L'Enfant Plaza in 1976. In 2018, the museum saw about 6.2 million visitors, making it the fifth-most-visited museum in the world, and the second-most-visited museum in the United States. In 2020, due to long closures and a drop in foreign tourism caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, museum attendance dropped to 267,000. The National Air and Space Museum is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and spaceflight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics. Almost all spacecraft and aircraft on display are originals or the original backup craft. The museum contains the Apollo 11 Command Module ''Columbia'', the ''Friendship 7'' capsule which was flown by John Glenn, Charles Lin ...
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Akeno Giant Air Shower Array
The Akeno Giant Air Shower Array (AGASA) is a very large surface array designed to study the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. Located in the town of Akeno in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan, it covers an area of 100 km2 and consists of 111 surface detectors and 27 muon detectors. Array experiments such as this one are used to detect air shower particles. The array is operated by the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo at the Akeno Observatory. Results The results from AGASA were used to calculate the energy spectrum and anisotropy of cosmic rays. The results helped to confirm the existence of ultra-high energy cosmic rays ( >), such as the so-called " Oh-My-God" particle that was observed by the Fly's Eye experiment run by the University of Utah. The Telescope Array, a merger of the AGASA and High Resolution Fly's Eye (HiRes) groups, and the Pierre Auger Observatory have improved on the results from AGASA by building larger, hybrid detectors a ...
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Cosmic Ray Visual Phenomena
Cosmic ray visual phenomena, or light flashes (LF), also known as Astronaut's Eye, are spontaneous flashes of light visually perceived by some astronauts outside the magnetosphere of the Earth, such as during the Apollo program. While LF may be the result of actual photons of visible light being sensed by the retina, the LF discussed here could also pertain to phosphenes, which are sensations of light produced by the activation of neurons along the visual pathway. Possible causes Researchers believe that the LF perceived specifically by astronauts in space are due to cosmic rays (high-energy charged particles from beyond the Earth's atmosphere), though the exact mechanism is unknown. Hypotheses include Cherenkov radiation created as the cosmic ray particles pass through the vitreous humour of the astronauts' eyes, direct interaction with the optic nerve, direct interaction with visual centres in the brain, retinal receptor stimulation, and a more general interaction of the retina ...
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South Atlantic Anomaly
The South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) is an area where Earth's inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to Earth's surface, dipping down to an altitude of . This leads to an increased flux of energetic particles in this region and exposes orbiting satellites to higher-than-usual levels of ionizing radiation. The effect is caused by the non-concentricity of Earth and its magnetic dipole. The SAA is the near-Earth region where Earth's magnetic field is weakest relative to an idealized Earth-centered dipole field. Definition The area of the SAA is confined by the intensity of Earth's magnetic field at less than 32,000 nanotesla at sea level, which corresponds to the dipolar magnetic field at ionospheric altitudes. However, the field itself varies in intensity as a gradient. Position and shape The Van Allen radiation belts are symmetric about the Earth's magnetic axis, which is tilted with respect to the Earth's rotational axis by an angle of approximately 11°. The intersection b ...
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NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management f ...
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Saturated Absorption
In experimental atomic physics, saturated absorption spectroscopy or Doppler-free spectroscopy is a set-up that enables the precise determination of the transition frequency of an atom between its ground state and an optically excited state. The accuracy to which these frequencies can be determined is, ideally, limited only by the width of the excited state, which is the inverse of the lifetime of this state. However, the samples of atomic gas that are used for that purpose are generally at room temperature, where the measured frequency distribution is highly broadened due to the Doppler effect. Saturated absorption spectroscopy allows precise spectroscopy of the atomic levels without having to cool the sample down to temperatures at which the Doppler broadening is no longer relevant (which would be on the order of a few millikelvins). It is also used to lock the frequency of a laser to the precise wavelength of an atomic transition in atomic physics experiments. Doppler broadening ...
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Electron
The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no known components or substructure. The electron's mass is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton. Quantum mechanical properties of the electron include an intrinsic angular momentum ( spin) of a half-integer value, expressed in units of the reduced Planck constant, . Being fermions, no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state, in accordance with the Pauli exclusion principle. Like all elementary particles, electrons exhibit properties of both particles and waves: They can collide with other particles and can be diffracted like light. The wave properties of electrons are easier to observe with experiments than those of other particles like neutrons and protons because electrons have a lower mass and hence a longer de Broglie wavele ...
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Electronvolt
In physics, an electronvolt (symbol eV, also written electron-volt and electron volt) is the measure of an amount of kinetic energy In physics, the kinetic energy of an object is the energy that it possesses due to its motion. It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its acc ... gained by a single electron accelerating from rest through an Voltage, electric potential difference of one volt in vacuum. When used as a Units of energy, unit of energy, the numerical value of 1 eV in joules (symbol J) is equivalent to the numerical value of the Electric charge, charge of an electron in coulombs (symbol C). Under the 2019 redefinition of the SI base units, this sets 1 eV equal to the exact value Historically, the electronvolt was devised as a standard unit of measure through its usefulness in Particle accelerator#Electrostatic particle accelerators, electrostatic particle accel ...
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Proton
A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ratio). Protons and neutrons, each with masses of approximately one atomic mass unit, are jointly referred to as "nucleons" (particles present in atomic nuclei). One or more protons are present in the nucleus of every atom. They provide the attractive electrostatic central force which binds the atomic electrons. The number of protons in the nucleus is the defining property of an element, and is referred to as the atomic number (represented by the symbol ''Z''). Since each element has a unique number of protons, each element has its own unique atomic number, which determines the number of atomic electrons and consequently the chemical characteristics of the element. The word ''proton'' is Greek for "first", and this name was given to the ...
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State University Of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 colleges offering more than 200 areas of study and seven professional degrees. On an urban 1,880-acre campus on the banks of the Iowa River, the University of Iowa is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". In fiscal year 2021, research expenditures at Iowa totaled $818 million. The university is best known for its programs in health care, law, and the fine arts, with programs ranking among the top 25 nationally in those areas. The university was the original developer of the Master of Fine Arts degree and it operates the Iowa Writers' Workshop, which has produced 17 of the university's 46 Pulitzer Prize winners. Iowa is a member of the Association of American Universities, the Universities Research Asso ...
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