The Royal High School, Bath Marina 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 of Wikipedia, 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 parallel  Enough energy to travel close to speed of light

Angle of Incidence t= 2.5 x 10⁻⁹ s c= 3 x 10⁸ m/s ct= 0.75 m 6 m Detector 1 Detector 2 ct ct 0.75 m cosα = 0.75 / 6 cosα = α = 83° α = cos ⁻ 1 ((c*t)/6) α

Screenshot of excel spreadsheet

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)

C B A B C D E A = B (C + B ) – A = C

What We Will Do Next

2α = diameter of Sun / distance to Earth 2α = 1,391,684 / x 10⁸ 2α = π(1-cos α) Solid angle= x 10⁻⁸ Sun Earth 2α2α Distance From NASA website: Distance from sun to earth= x 10⁸ km Diameter of sun = 1,391,684km From NASA website: Distance from sun to earth= x 10⁸ km Diameter of sun = 1,391,684km