protons tagged posts

New Mission going to the Space Station to explore mysteries of ‘Cosmic Rain’

From its new vantage point on the International Space Station's Japanese Experiment Module - Exposed Facility, the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (ISS-CREAM) mission, shown in the inset illustration, will study cosmic rays to determine their sources and acceleration mechanisms. Credit: NASA

From its new vantage point on the International Space Station’s Japanese Experiment Module – Exposed Facility, the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (ISS-CREAM) mission, shown in the inset illustration, will study cosmic rays to determine their sources and acceleration mechanisms. Credit: NASA

A new experiment set for an Aug. 14 launch to the International Space Station will provide an unprecedented look at a rain of particles from deep space, called cosmic rays, that constantly showers our planet. The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass mission destined for the International Space Station (ISS-CREAM) is designed to measure the highest-energy particles of any detector yet flown in space...

Read More

Protons and antiprotons appear to be true mirror images

Schematic of the measurement and the reservoir Penning traps.

Schematic of the measurement and the reservoir Penning traps. Credit http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14861

In a stringent test of a fundamental property of the standard model of particle physics, known as CPT symmetry, researchers from the RIKEN-led BASE collaboration at CERN have made the most precise measurements so far of the charge-to-mass ratio of protons and their antimatter counterparts, antiprotons. The work was carried out using CERN’s Antiproton Decelerator, a device that provides low-energy antiprotons for antimatter studies.

Results and data analysis.

All measured antiproton-to-H− cyclotron frequency ratios as a function of time Credit: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14861

CPT invariance – which the experiment was meant to test – means that a system remains unchanged if three fundamental properties a...

Read More