STUDY OF COSMIC RAYS IN CANADA

Wanganui Chronicle, 21 July 1950, Page 5

STUDY OF COSMIC RAYS IN CANADA

U.S. Expedition Is To Resume Work (By a Reuter Correspondent in New York.) A United States scientific expedition will resume in a few weeks a programme initiated five years ago for the study of cosmis rays in Canada It is a joint undertaking of the National Geographic Society and the Bartol Reserach Foundation of the Franklin Institute of Swathmore, Pennsylvania. The two sponsors began a continuing cosmic ray research programme in 1945. The 1950 expedition, as was that last year, will be headed by Dr. Martin A. Pomerantz of the Bartol Foundation. The National Geographic Society, announcing the plans for the expedition, said Dr. Pomerantz and his assistants would seek "to develop data’’ to answer the question: "Is the sun a g'gantic manufacturing plant for the mysterious cosmic rays which relentlessly bombard the earth from outer space?”

“Balloon Trains,” according to the society, will operate 20* miles high over Canada’s Hudson Bay in a new attempt to establish the origin of the "sub atomic artillery barrage.” “Besides seeking clues to the origin of cosmic rays,” said the society, “the expedition will study intensively the properties of low-energy band of cosmiv radiation discovered near the top of the atmosphere during research work in the Hudson Bay area a year ago?’ DETECTIVE WORK

The 1949 expedition under Dr. Pomerantz was considered a highly successful piece of physicists’ detective work. According to the society, this assessment was made as a result of a rata developed from Dr. Pomerantz’s research. The new information he gathered and assessed “exploded the widely-accepted theory that the sun possesses a permanent magnetic field of great strength.” Dr. Pomerantz, in fact, recorded cosmic radiations of such small penetrating power that they “could not have entered the earth’s atmospheric domain if a permanent solar magnetic field had been operative to the extent long assumed by scientists. The specific subject of investigation by Dr. Pomerantz this year will be whether there is evidence that the sun has a variable magnetic field, as certain stars have.

Such a field, according to physicists, would provide a “mechanism for the acceleration of charged particles of all kinds up to cosmic ray energies in the neighbourhood of the sun.” “Should the presence of a variable solar magnetic field be detected in the coming or subsequent experiments,” Dr. Pomerantz said, “the sun may eventually be regarded as the source of practically all the cosmic radiation reaching the earth ’ “BALLOON TRAINS.”

The so-called "Balloon Trains” are multiple fights of free balloons. They will carry aloft a fourfold arrangement of geiger counters that will record cosmic rays data and report such datt by radio signal to a new type of mobile trailer equipment on the ground. “Gondolas” below the balloons in which the geiger counters will be carried will also have instruments for transmitting continuous information about atmospheric pressure and temperature. .In another and separate series of flights, the free balloons will be used to carry ionisation chambers to altitudes as high as 20 miles for the purpose of recording nuclear explosions produced by primary cosmic rays. The expedition will leave Swart hmore on July 12 and arrive at Churchill, Northern Manitoba, on Hudson Bay, a week later. It expects to be in the field with Churchill as its base, about six weeks. Another Bartol foundation physicist, Gordon McClure, will accompany Dr. Pomerantz. Other members of the expedition are two Bartol Foundation engineer-techni-cians. Robert Pfe'ffer and Edward Swoffer.

The Canadian Government has promised full co-operation with the expedition. Canadian cosmic ray scientists will collaborate with the U.S. group and Canadian meteorological staff at Churchill will assist.