3 ms·
IIRC most turn into muons or electron/positiron showers, depending on the incident angle. Recall a physics lab long ago playing with NaI scintillators and phot
by beezle 7y ago
IIRC most turn into muons or electron/positiron showers, depending on the incident angle. Recall a physics lab long ago playing with NaI scintillators and photomultipliers at 10kV to detect the muons from the showers.
- oliveshell 7y agoYeah, rather than reaching earth’s surface directly, it’s far more likely that a given cosmic ray will collide with molecules in the atmosphere, creating a particle shower [1]. Extremely high-energy cosmic rays are sometimes detected, however. The so-called “Oh-My-God particle“, detected in 1991, apparently carried as much energy as a baseball moving at 58 mph [2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_shower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_shower [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle
- ChuckMcM 7y agoYou are correct, the cosmic rays you see in a cloud chamber are typically muons (and its pretty easy to make one with stuff you can get at the drug store (or apothecary if you're outside the US :-)). If you want to see the higher energy ones then shielding helps.