ANITA in the press.
Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), with energies exceeding 10^19eV, are rare. A random square kilometer on Earth is hit by a few dozen per century. But their trajectories, relatively undeflected by intergalactic magnetic fields, might reveal their enigmatic sources. So astrophysicists build enormous ground-detector arrays. But even the flagship 3000-km^2 Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, which … Read more →
Ultrahigh energy photons striking matter can transform into rho mesons through an interaction that involves many nuclei simultaneously, a phenomenon that may affect the detection signatures of high-energy particles from space. When an energetic photon smashes into matter, it can create a massive particle, the rho meson, when it strikes an atomic nucleus. A report … Read more →
The Honolulu Star Bulletin A SCIENTIFIC balloon designed to make the first-ever measurements of high-energy neutrinos has completed a 35-day flight over Antarctica, said University of Hawaii professor Peter Gorham, who is leading the project. As the high-altitude balloon cruised at 120,000 feet above the Antarctic continent, 40 antennas listened for bursts of radio waves … Read more →
The Antarctic Sun The dream of unlocking neutrinos’ secrets has kept scientists tossing and turning since the subatomic particles were first theorized in the 1930s. The vision has been there, but the technology to materialize that vision has not. Three teams of scientists are now preparing to use Antarctic ice as the key to open … Read more →
SLAC Today During the first week of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, SLAC will be home to a mini-Antarctica. Scientists are using a ten-ton block of ice in End Station A to calibrate the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA), a radio antenna array that will fly over the South Pole on a NASA balloon to … Read more →
PBS NOVA Scientists estimate that many hundreds of billions of neutrinos will have harmlessly sped through your body by the time you finish reading this sentence. But despite their abundance, there’s only a 10 percent chance over the course of your entire lifetime that even one of these invisible particles will ever (again, harmlessly) interact … Read more →
Nobelprize.org Mankind has studied the universe for thousands of years by looking at the fascinating night sky, guided by the visible light emitted from myriads of stars and other phenomena. During the last century new pictures of the night sky have been discovered by scientists using different wavelengths of light which the naked eye cannot … Read more →
The Antarctic Sun Inside TRACER mission control, Patrick “JoJo” Boyle sits in the six-foot square office listening to music and watching computer monitors for incoming data and messages. Every now and then Boyle points to the monitor where a string of bright red pixels suddenly appear, indicating a recent high-energy cosmic ray event. The tone … Read more →