The California High School Cosmic Ray Observatory, (abbreviated ''CHICOS'', for California HIgh school Cosmic ray ObServatory), operated by the Kellogg Laboratory at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial d ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, United States, is an ongoing

Cosmic Ray Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the ...

observatory program. It is known for its large network within the Los Angeles County area, based mainly on high school sites carrying cosmic ray detector units, though there are also detector units on associated elementary schools and middle schools.

Mission

The CHICOS project blends scientific research with broadly-based educational outreach. CHICOS is an active research array for the detection of

Ultra-high-energy cosmic ray In astroparticle physics, an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) is a cosmic ray with an energy greater than 1 EeV (1018 electronvolts, approximately 0.16 joules), far beyond both the rest mass and energies typical of other cosmic ray part ...

. The array as presently deployed has already seen extended air showers, and the soon-to-be-completed CHICOS 90 array will observe with large aperture in the energy range from 10¹⁸ to 10²¹ eV, with the angular resolution to address questions of clustering in several years of run time. The events CHICOS is designed to observe are single

subatomic particles In physics, a subatomic particle is a particle smaller than an atom. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, a subatomic particle can be either a composite particle, which is composed of other particles (for example, a baryon, like ...

slamming into the Earth's

atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...

with the energy of a brick falling from a rooftop. These Ultra-high-energy cosmic ray, or UHECRs, interact with the atmosphere to produce large showers of secondary particles at the surface of the Earth. Detection of UHECRs therefore depends on an array of particle sensors deployed like a net over many square kilometers to catch the incoming shower. In the CHICOS project, schools across the Los Angeles area provide the "net" of detector sites with ready-made infrastructure and a valuable population of teachers and students who participate in the project.

Shmoos (Cosmic Ray Detector Units)

The detectors used in the CHICOS program are specially called "Shmoos" because of their similarity in shape to the cartoon character

Shmoo The shmoo (plural: shmoos, also shmoon) is a fictional cartoon creature created by Al Capp (1909–1979); the character first appeared in the comic strip ''Li'l Abner'' on August 31, 1948. The character created a fad that lasted into the 1950s, i ...

. Each school site generally has two of these Shmoos set on their campus, to help gather accurate particle shower data. CHICOS school site1

The Shmoos are the most important part of the CHICOS project, and their setup requires accurate measurements and careful construction from the inside-out. Shmoos are generally set up at the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory and sent to schools. High school students have the chance to participate in the assembly process. Once the Shmoos are installed, the on-site teachers and students assist with their repair and maintenance. At a school site, Shmoos are generally put not too far from each other, with the two Shmoos connected via cables to the associated

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

provided with the detectors.

Future

CHICOS has a data collection system that is recording all the large cosmic ray showers that fall within the array. The information that is collected from the Cosmic Ray detectors from different schools are combined to reconstruct cosmic ray events. These events are analyzed to create histograms of cosmic ray incidents, including a sky-map that would indicate the spread of cosmic rays directions from outer space, with each shower that is recorded indicating a cosmic event. The goal of CHICOS is to be able to trace these cosmic rays back to their source, and understand what it exactly is that produces UHECRs. This quest remains one of the top eleven unsolved mysteries in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

today. In the future, more schools in the Los Angeles area are joining this program, more data will be collected and a more complete sky-map will be graphed. More detailed studies of CHICOS data and matches with

astronomical Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest include ...

research will provide progress toward a better understand of the nature cosmic rays and the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...

Sponsorship

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

donated a significant fraction of the computers used in data collection at each site. Ongoing operational expenses of the project are provided by the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

. CHICOS actively seeks additional grants, both public and private, to enable expansion and better educational support as described above.

References

External links