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2003-2004 USAP
Field Season
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Aeronomy & Astrophysics
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Dr. Vladimir Papitashvili
Program Manager
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A-120-M/S
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NSF/OPP
00-00315
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Station:
McMurdo Station, South Pole Station
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RPSC POC:
Charles Kaminski
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Research Site(s):
USCG Icebreaker, SkyLab, COSRAY
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Dates in Antarctica:
Early October to early April (McMurdo), mid January to mid February (South Pole)
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Spaceship Earth: Probing the solar wind with cosmic rays
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Solar and heliospheric studies with antarctic cosmic rays
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Deploying Team Members:
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Paul A. Evenson
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Leonard M. Shulman
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Research Objectives:
Cosmic rays -- atomic nuclei and electrons from outer space traveling near the speed of light -- continuously bombard the earth. When they collide with nuclei of molecules in the upper atmosphere, they create a cascade of secondary particles that shower the earth. Neutron monitors deployed in Antarctica provide a vital three-dimensional perspective on this shower of particles.
These data are used to advance our understanding of a variety of fundamental plasma processes occurring on the sun and in interplanetary space. Neutron monitor records, which begin in 1960 at McMurdo and in 1964 at South Pole, play a crucial role in efforts to understand the nature and causes of cosmic-ray and solar-terrestrial variations occurring over the 11-year sunspot cycle, the 22-year Hale cycle, and even longer time scales. At the other extreme, new methods of studying high time resolution (10-second) cosmic ray data will be used to determine the three-dimensional structure of turbulence in space and to understand the mechanism by which energetic charged particles scatter in this turbulence.
This project continues the year-round observations of cosmic rays with energies upwards of one billion electron volts at McMurdo and South Pole stations.
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