QuarkNet Cosmic Ray Telescope

As cosmic rays hit the upper atmosphere, they interact with nuclei in the atmosphere. Muons, which are one of the decay products of that interaction, travel through the atmosphere to the surface of the earth at close to the speed of light.

The muon detector paddles have several components: first, a scintillating plastic that emits light when exposed to high-energy particles (muons, photons, electrons, etc.); next, a plastic light guide to direct the light from the scintillator to the photomultiplier tube (PMT); then a PMT where a photon initiates a reaction that produces about 100,000 electrons, thereby creating an amplified electrical signal; and finally, a base which supplies the PMT with power. This apparatus is covered with two layers of thick paper, white on the inside to reflect light back into the paddle and black on the outside to prevent any visible light photons from entering the system.

When a high-energy particle contacts the scintillator, a signal is generated that will travel from the base, through an interface board, to the computer that displays your results. When doing experiments, you will always use at least two paddles, because a single paddle will sometimes give off signals for things that aren’t muons. You are looking for a coincidence, which occurs when there is a signal from two or more paddles within a few hundred nanoseconds. This is such a short time because the particles are traveling at high speeds. A coincidence almost always represents a muon that has traveled a path intersecting both paddles.

Construction of the muon telescope

The SID Monitor

Earth's ionosphere reacts strongly to the intense x-ray and ultraviolet radiation released by the Sun during a solar event. By using a receiver to monitor the signal strength from distant VLF transmitters, and noting unusual changes as the waves bounce off the ionosphere, students around the world can directly monitor and track these Sudden Ionospheric Disturbances (SIDs).

Stanford's Solar Center, in conjunction with the Electrical Engineering Department's Very Low Frequency group and local educators, have developed inexpensive SID monitors that students can install and use at their local high schools. Students "buy in" to the project by building their own antenna, a simple structure costing less than $10 and taking a couple hours to assemble. Data collection and analysis is handled by a local PC, which need not be fast or elaborate. Stanford is providing a centralized data repository and blog site where students can exchange and discuss data.

Components of the Decametric Telescope

http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html

Radio Receiver

The "standard" receiver for the Radio JOVE project is the RJ 1.1.

A simple direct conversion receiver for 20 MHz, this receiver is part of the Radio JOVE radio telescope kit. It is designed to be easy to construct and align.

Decametric Antenna Array

· 2 Element Phased Dipole Array
This design is the recommended antenna for Radio Jove. Detailed construction information is available in the Antenna Kit assembly manual.