Charting Pacific Cosmic Rays

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 74, 28 March 1936, Page 10

Charting Pacific Cosmic Rays

x METER PLACED ON AORANGI 1 RESEARCH BY PROFESSOR ' | A; H. COMPTON 3 Apparatus for determining the inten- ( sity of cosmic rays has been placed on tho after-deck of the Canadian Austra- _ lasian liner, Aorangi for Professor Arthur H. Compton,, professor of physics at the University of Chicago, who vis- \ ited New Zealand in 1532- to conduct a series of experiments here into the | characteristics of these rays. This cosi mie ray meter is one of the seven being set up at stragetic points throughout tho world. One has already been erected at Christchurch, which is the nearest practicable elevated land to tho South Magnetic Pole, and another in Peru, on tho Magnetic Equator. Tho others are to bo installed in Greenland, which is the nearest place possible to tho North Magnetic Pol, in Mexico, and in tho Rockies, probably in Colorado. Tho meter was set up on the Aorangi when tho ship was at Vancouver at the end of January, and the present arrangements are to leave it there for a year to record the variations of cosmic rays between Vancouver and New Zealand. To check tho workings of the meter, Professor Compton travelled as j far as Honolulu by the Aorangi, which ! left Vancouver for Auckland and Syd . ney on January 30. His intention was to await the return of the Aorangi to Honolulu on the Northward trip on March 13, and if the results of tho ex' periments conducted during the voyage across the Pacific proved satisfactory, to return to Vancouver.

The delicate mechanism comprising the meter is insulated from surrounding radiations by successive layors of lead and copper, leaving it acting active only to the cosmic rays. The apparatus, which weighs more than 40001 b., contains argon, which when struck by tho rays becomes intensified and indicates tho intensity of its charge on a sensitive electroscope. Tho series of experiments to determine the intensity of cosmic rays will take place over a period of elevon years, the sunspot cycle, as a result of which it is hoped to find what time variations there are in cosmic rays and what rules govern them. By the measurements taken aboard the Aorangi it is hoped to determine which hemisphere of the earth receives the highest proportion of the rays.