ScienceDaily (Dec. 24, 2004) — A stratospheric balloon of Nasa was launched yesterday, December 16 from the Antarctica's McMurdo base. The balloon raised the CREAM (Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass) experiment up to 40 kilometres high. In the experiment, coordinated by Eun Suk Seo of Maryland University, participate American universities (Maryland, Chicago, Penn State, Ohio), South Korea universities (Ewa, KyungPook) and an Italian group of Pisa, Siena, and Torino departments of the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics (Infn), directed by Pier Simone Marrocchesi.

The balloon, following circulation of high winds, will sail around the ice continent for about three weeks. During this time, data of great scientific interest will be gathered. These data concern flows of charged particles of highest energy (cosmic rays) coming from Space.

The CREAM experiment was conceived in particular to investigate the origin of cosmic rays and their acceleration mechanisms: two questions that are still waiting for a definite answer, in spite of the enormous advancements carried out in this field since 1912. At that time Victor Hess, thanks to his pioneer balloon flights, was the first to show the existence of radiation coming from Space.

More information and photos relating the balloon launch are available at the web page http://www.unisi.it/fisica/cream/

CREAM experiment. (Image courtesy of Istituto Nazionale Di Fisica Nucleare)

Related Stories

Giant Balloon Flying High Over Atlantic To Catch Cosmic Rays (May 22, 2009) — A giant balloon, taller than a football field, is now flying at the edge of space to collect data on cosmic rays -- the most super-charged particles in the ...  > read more

Balloon Carrying Chicago-built Detector Makes Record-breaking Flight (Feb. 16, 2005) — Carrying a device built by a team led by Simon Swordy, James Franck Professor in Physics at the University of Chicago, a NASA scientific balloon broke the flight record for duration and distance. ...  > read more

NASA's Fermi Explores High-energy 'Space Invaders' (May 4, 2009) — Since its launch last June, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a new class of pulsars, probed gamma-ray bursts and watched flaring jets in galaxies billions of light-years away. ...  > read more

Chandra Discovers Relativistic Pinball Machine (Nov. 15, 2006) — New clues about the origins of cosmic rays, mysterious high-energy particles that bombard the Earth, have been revealed using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. An extraordinarily detailed image of ...  > read more

Search ScienceDaily

Balloons Track Storms And Save Lives