Antarctic Neutron Monitors For Solar Study

The Science Explained

My experience at McMurdo Station involved the study of neutrons caused by cosmic radiation from the sun. The sun can be very active. Changes in the sun's active surface can result in the ejection of high energy particles (from solar flares, coronal mass ejections, or related phenomena). Some of these particles can get sent toward the earth

Presentation prepared for the Rochester Community Schools Board of Education related to the PolarTREC 2017 Neutron Monitors for Solar Study expedition.

Eric Thuma, a physics teacher at Stoney Creek High School, recently spent three weeks in Antarctica assisting in scientific polar research.

Overview:

Students will examine sunspots and track them at different latitudes on the Sun. This activity is adapted from the Tracking Sunspots activity on NASA’s Solar and Heliocentric Observatory (SOHO) website (2009): https://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/classroom/for_students.html.

Objectives:

Students begin to familiarize themselves with solar activity by tracking sunspots at different latitudes on the Sun. This activity is designed to get students thinking about

Local news source in Rochester, MI covers the deployment of Eric Thuma to McMurdo Station.

Overview:

When radioactive elements decay they emit high-speed particles. These can be detected by use of a cloud chamber. The cloud chamber was invented by Charles Thomson Rees Wilson in 1911. The chamber works by saturating the air inside with alcohol vapor. Cooling the chamber with dry ice supersaturates the air. The energetic particles produced by the radioactive decay ionize

This is a suite of labs created by Michigan State University and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA). It provides a number of lessons and activities in nuclear physics. It can be used to demonstrate the types of reactions typical in cosmic ray interactions and the interactions that the CosRay neutron monitors depend on.

The Energetic Ray Global Observatory (ERGO) is a program that will provide students and teachers with a small detector that is capable of detecting the cosmic rays in a manner very similar to CosRAY and IceCube. The unit is small and will allow data to be exported automatically to Google Maps.

Background on the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.

Plans for the Berkeley National Laboratory cosmic ray detector. This detector can be built by high school teachers and can be used to study cosmic rays in a method similar to the antarctic particle studies (CosRAY and IceCube).