How to Measure Energy Cosmic Rays

Cosmic rays are like photons for scientists for astronomers. As astronomers use light (or photons) to observe our galaxies and other galaxies, scientists use cosmic rays to infer the useful properties of our galaxies. In fact, cosmic rays provide one of the few ways scientists actually sample substances outside the solar system. By identifying the various nuclei scattered in the Milky Way, scientists hope to reveal the mechanisms to actually create these nuclei - from nuclear synthesis to nuclear synthesis of supernovae, to nuclear division.

Today, astronomers classify cosmic rays into four main types based on their energy and composition. Solar cosmic rays, extraordinary cosmic rays, galactic cosmic rays, and super high energy cosmic rays. According to our current information, these departments are our best guess for classifying different types of cosmic rays and can be confirmed or modified by the next generation cosmic ray detector currently under development.

In most cases cosmic ray detection is not an easy thing. The Earth 's atmosphere is essentially opaque to cosmic rays. In other words, you need a spacer based detector. Although it is very effective for abundant low energy cosmic rays, the size of the detector is inevitably small, so the possibility of detecting rare higher energy cosmic rays is very small. Fortunately, cosmic rays with energy exceeding ~1014 eV can be detected indirectly from the ground. As they enter the Earth's atmosphere, these cosmic rays interact with atoms and produce secondary particles in the cosmic-ray shower. The energy and direction of the original cosmic rays can be determined by examining the granule shower.

In 1954, members of the Rossi Cosmic Ray Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology first measured the energy and direction of ultra-high energy primary cosmic rays using density sampling technology and large-scale air shower rapid timing technology. In this experiment, we used eleven scintillation detectors placed in a circle 460 meters in diameter at Agassi Station of Harvard University Observatory. From this research and many other experiments conducted around the world, it is now known that the energy spectrum of major cosmic rays exceeds 1020 eV. A large-scale air shower experiment called the Auger Project is currently operated by an international consortium of physicists located in Pampasu Prairie, Argentina. Co-led with Allen Watson. University of Leeds