P-NG's Part in IGY

Cosmic Rays And

Radio

P-NG's Part in IGY Activities

IN May, in Lae, New Guinea, Mr. K. G. McCracken, BSc, a graduate of the University of Tasmania, is installing equipment— some designed and built by himself and the rest by the University of Tasmania for the continuous recording of cosmic rays. Design ing, building, installing and opera tion of this equipment is part of his study plan for his Doctorate in Philosophy.

Research aimed at finding out where cosmic rays come from and how they are formed, has been carried on by the Univesity of Tasmania at various stations since 1949. Physicists have been opera ting equipment and recording findings at Mawson, in the Antarctic; Macquarie Island, a sub-Antarctic island; and at three locations in Tasmania.

Since the less energetic cosmic rays cannot reach the earth near •L eqi i ator ’ the observations made with the equipment at Lae will give valuable results when com pared with the observations from

the other stations, which, being further from the equator, can record less energetic rays.

Lae has been chosen as the site for the equipment as it is in Australian Trust Territory and is equipped with radio-sonde equip ment which will provide data necessary for the complete in terpretation of the cosmic ray readings.

The installation will take about 2-weeks, and after a month’s supervision, Mr. McCracken will

return to Tasmania to finsh his Doctorate of Philosophy, leaving a member of the Department of Civil Aviation to carry on in Lae and send a recorder-charts to Tasmania each week.

The equipment, which is housed in DCA premises, will remain at Lae for 18-months and every six months, Mr. McCracken or another physicist will visit the station and make exhaustive tests.

Cosmic rays have been bombard ing the earth since the be ginning of time, and scientists have little idea as to where they come from or what effect they on the human body. They are not produced in atom or hydrogen bombs—the dangerous radio-active particles from these bombs being quite different from cosmic rays.

The study of cosmic rays had been in progress for many years before the first atomic bomb was exploded.

Research has disclosed that the sun. on rare occasions, produces cosmic rays—but the process is unknown —and the rest of the time the sun is screening off cosmic rays from outer space. By studying the way cosmic rays vary as the earth and sun rotate, from charts recorded by the equipment, the direction from which the rays are coming, and the effect the sun has on them, may be calculated.

The sun varies in its effect on cosmic rays over 11-year periods,

and for the next two years will be in a very active condition. This period, which includes the 18months period chosen for the International Geophysical Year, is opportune for the study of cosmic rays and other phenomena occurring on the earth and sun.

During the International

Geophysical Year, many physicists

scattered all over the earth v? observing these phenomena, sending their results to a c: collecting agency which will co the results and redistribute data. Thus, through this national co-operation there vj available a large quantity of rr data, enabling intensive studl calculations to be made. A

i collected by the University of mania will be circulated in this mer. station has been set up outside t Moresby, to record the earth’s ;netic field, earth tremors, and •acteristics of radio trans aon during the IGY.