The Royal High School, BathMarina Ivon Kaat Michela

Image (Courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope): HST Mystic Mountain, Carina Nebula.

Does the Sun affect cosmic ray detection?

Their Hypothesis

The Sun may have a blocking effect on cosmic radiation.

Zenith – The imaginary point located directly above a location on the Earth’s surface. zenith

Confidence intervals were added to show the range of uncertainty in the data values.

The number of cosmic ray events detected are at a minimum at noon.

RHS: Trend is present with 95% confidence.

Station 305: Trend is present with 99% confidence.

Supporting Evidence for Hypothesis

RHS

Station 305

Their Conclusion

Their evidence supports their hypothesis which states that the Sun may have a blocking effect on cosmic ray detection is a viable theory .

Images are featured in this presentation in courtesy ofWikipedia, Google Images and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Our Research

Using the examples set by the previous students, we moved on to find further evidence for the hypothesis that the blocking effect is indeed coming from the Sun.

Characteristics of Cosmic Ray Showers

They came from the same particle

They travel in parallelEnough energy to travel

close to speed of light

Angle of Incidence

t= 2.5 x 10 s⁻⁹c= 3 x 10 m/s⁸ct= 0.75 m

6 mDetector 1 Detector 2

ct

c t

0.75 m

cosα = 0.75 / 6cosα = 0.125α = 83°

α = cos⁻1((c*t)/6)

α

Screenshot of excel spreadsheet

0

0 - 2

8

29 -

42

42 -

52

52 -

61

61 -

68

68 -

76

76 -

83

83 -

97

97 -

104

104

-112

112

- 120

120

- 128

128

- 138

138

- 151

151

- 180

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Average number of cosmic rays from different angles

angle

aver

age

num

ber o

f cos

mic

rays

Solid angle…A fraction of the surface of a

sphere that a particular object covers… which is measured in

steradians

Solid angle of half a cone…

π (1-cos ө)

Solid angle of a pyramid…

4 (sin 1⁻ (sin sin ))

C

B A

B

C

DE

A = B(C + B ) – A = C

0

0 - 2

8

29 -

42

42 -

52

52 -

61

61 -

68

68 -

76

76 -

83

83 -

97

97 -

104

104

-112

112

- 120

120

- 128

128

- 138

138

- 151

151

- 180

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Average number of cosmic rays from different angles

angle

aver

age

num

ber o

f cos

mic

rays

What We Will Do Next

What We Will Do Next

2α = diameter of Sun / distance to Earth2α = 1,391,684 / 1.496 x 10⁸2α = 0.009303

2 π(1-cos α)Solid angle= 8.2818 x 10⁻⁸

SunEarth 2α

Distance

From NASA website:Distance from sun to earth= 1.496 x 10 km⁸Diameter of sun = 1,391,684km