Balloons carrying muon detectors launched in Aussie and US collaboration
Seven high-altitude balloons floated upwards from four cities across the United States in a collaboration between Australian and American scientists and students.
The scientific collaboration named HERA (High-Altitude Engineering for Research in Astrophysics) is led in Australia by our Centre’s Senior Education and Public Outreach Manager Jackie Bondell, with Springside Chestnut Hill Academy and Drexel University in the US.
The balloons are attached to MDetect (a muon detector company founded at Swinburne University of Technology) and Cosmic Watches (developed in the US) to detect muons – elementary particles that are similar to electrons but with greater mass.
Students from the Centre’s Partner Regional Schools Program will join researchers at the University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, and Australian National University and their colleagues in the US to analyse data from the muon detectors.
The project aims to get students involved in authentic astrophysics research by enabling them to design experiments to study cosmic ray interactions with the Earth’s atmosphere and launch those experiments using high-altitude balloons.
The research is supported by MDetect, CDM, the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium and the 16 institutions partnering on the project.
The first balloons launched by teams from Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and California on 10 May reached a peak altitude of about 100,000 ft.
Teams in Australia and the US are now working to extract and analyse the data retrieved in the launch.
Jackie Bondell said she aimed to arrange a similar high-altitude balloon launch in Australia in coming months.
“It was extremely exciting to be involved in this launch that will provide us with valuable data on muons at different altitudes, which will provide a rich and authentic research opportunity to our regional partner school students and will provide feedback about the performance of mDetect muon detectors in flight.
“The project gives students access to science and experimentation that has real physics applications.”