Antarctic "Telescopes" Look for Cosmic Rays

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Working in the harsh conditions of Antarctica, Maryland researchers are creating new ways of detecting cosmic rays, high energy particles that bombard the Earth from beyond our solar system.

FIRE AND ICE

IceCube will begin providing significant data in 2006 and be completed in 2010. This research project will be a powerful tool in the search for answers to unsolved questions in physics and cosmology, such as the origin of cosmic rays and the nature of dark matter. In addition to Sullivan, the Maryland team includes assistant professor Kara Hoffman and professor and department chair Jordan Goodman.

A BALLOON'S EYE VIEW OF THE COSMOS Eun-Suk Seo , also an associate professor of physics at the University of Maryland, leads the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass(CREAM) project designed to determine the energy and composition of a different class of cosmic rays -- charged particles from our galaxy. This NASA-supported project makes use of balloons to fly particle detectors high above the Antarctic ice at the outer reaches of Earth's atmosphere, where such particles can be intercepted before they collide with molecules of air. CREAM promises to provide new insights into the origins of these high speed protons and ions and the cataclysmic process or processes by which these particles are accelerated to energies far higher than is possible in even the most powerful of human-made accelerators. The project recently completed its first balloon flight, in the process setting a duration and distance record for balloon flights. It soared for nearly 42 days, making three orbits around the South Pole. However, for professor Seo and the many other members of the project team, long flights mean far much more than records; they are vital to the project's ability to image the cosmos. Just as keeping the shutter open longer on a camera allows more photons of light to hit the film, extended balloon flights allow more cosmic ray particles to hit the balloon-born detector. The project is working with NASA to develop ultra long duration balloon flights that eventually will keep the CREAM particle detector in the air for up to 100 days.

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