8-The Florida Tech Crimson September 9, 2010

NASA Brief Progress resupply ship to arrive at station September 12 controllers while Odyssey was in and may be continually changing. aboard the European laboratory safe mode. Space Shuttle and Interna- module Columbus. She collabo- MESSENGER tional Space Station rated with the Columbus Control Christopher Tew MESSENGER has made Space Shuttle Discovery is Facility in Munich, Germany to observations of Mercury’s thin expected to roll out of the Orbiter repair the leak. Sci/Tech Editor atmosphere, which is composed of Processing Facility and into the Station crew members Al- materials like sodium, potassium, Vehicle Assembly Building on exander Skvortsov, and Flight magnesium, and calcium. These September 9. There, it will be mat- Engineers Mikhail Kornienko and elements are liberated from the ed to the already-stacked External Tracy Caldwell Dyson are prepar- Chandra X-ray Observa- and interstellar space, but has been surface of Mercury by the intense Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters. ing to end their stay aboard the tory making observations of the Earth’s solar radiation. Sodium is released The International Space station. They will undock aboard The Chandra X-ray Ob- PDJQHWLF¿HOGDVZHOO7KHVHRE- through a process called photon- Station is preparing for the arrival Soyuz TMA-18 on September servatory has detected a galactic servations were made jointly with stimulated desorption (PSD). of a Progress automated resupply 23. New crew members, Flight collision with has activated a the European Space Agency’s MESSENGER will enter vehicle that will dock to the aft Engineers Scott Kelly, Alexander radio “halo” around the colliding Cluster 3 spacecraft. Mercury orbit on March 18, 2011. port of Zvezda on September 12. Kaleri, and Oleg Skripochka will galaxies. Lunar Reconnaissance Spitzer Space Telescope The last resupply ship undocked launch aboard an improved Soyuz Kepler Orbiter The Spitzer Space Telescope on August 31. vehicle, Soyuz TMA-01M. They The planet-hunting Kepler The LRO spacecraft has is now on a campaign to observe The station residents have will join Commander Doug Whee- telescope has detected a solar sys- observed evidence the Moon has 700 near-Earth objects. It has also been photographing hurri- lock, and Flight Engineers Shan- WHPZLWKWZRSODQHWV7KLVWKH¿UVW shrunk in the recent past, and already observed 100 and has canes from orbit. non Walker and Fyodor Yurchikhin observed multi-planet solar system may still be shrinking. Scientists surprising results. The near-Earth Flight Engineer Calwell for Expedition 25. in which both planets “transit” the originally believed that the Moon object population is very diverse, '\VRQREVHUYHGDOHDNLQJÀXLGOLQH star. Kepler looks for planets by shrunk early in its history, as it watching stars for small drops in cooled after its formation. Now, brightness as a planet “transits” in certain kinds of cliffs, called lo- front of it. bare scarps, have been detected Fermi Space Telescope across the lunar surface. Earlier The Fermi space telescope missions had detected the same recently observed gamma rays kind of cliffs, but were limited emanating from a nova in the to near-equatorial region. Kepler constellation Cygnus. This came has discovered the cliffs at many as a surprise to many astronomers, different latitudes, making a global who did not believe that novas pro- shrinking the likely explanation. duced enough energy to generate Mars Exploration Rovers JDPPDUD\V7KHQRYDZDV¿UVW The Mars rover Opportu- observed in March by amateur nity continues to drive toward astronomers in Japan, and the news Endeavor Crater. was relayed to astronomers around Mars Odyssey the world. A paper describing the The Mars Odyssey space- observations was published in the craft put itself into safe mode on journal Science on August 13. July 14. Operators believe the IBEX problem stemmed from an elec- The Interstellar Boundary tronic encoder that controls the Explorer has discovered a source motion of the spacecraft’s solar of energetic neutral atoms coming panel. Odyssey switched to a from around Earth’s magneto- backup encoder and went into safe sphere. The IBEX spacecraft was mode. Science activities resumed Space Shuttle Discovery. Discovery will deliver the Permanent Multipurpose Module to the intended to study the boundary July 23. The Opportunity rover Station. (Image courtesy of www.nasa.gov) between the Sun’s magnetosphere was out of contact with ground Campus Research Report: Dr. Marcus Hohlmann, Part 1 of 2 Dr. Marcus Hohlmann is using muons to search for hidden threats Christopher Tew of the University of California, 30 cm. This prototype was already Sci/Tech Editor used muon sensors to scan an able to tell the difference in shape Egyptian pyramid for hidden and density between an iron cube Dr. Hohlmann of the Physics chambers (he found none in the and a cylinder of tantalum (a and Space Science Department is parts he surveyed). A team at the denser metal). Dr. Hohlmann says using technology developed at National Autonomous University his next step is the construction of the the European Organization of Mexico used muons to scan a what he calls the “cubic foot sta- for Nuclear Research (CERN) Mayan pyramid. Geologists have tion.” It will enclose a volume of for upgrades of the Large Hadron used muons to scan volcanoes for one cubic foot with detectors on Collider for practical purposes. activity. The Los Alamos National four sides. This will increase the He hopes to use muon scanning to Laboratory used muons for the abilities of the detector, making it detect dangerous substances like same purpose Dr. Hohlmann uses easier to see its targets of uranium uranium and plutonium. them: detecting hidden uranium and plutonium. The next step after Muons are negatively and plutonium. that is the construction of a “cubic charged sub-atomic particles that The key difference between meter station,” which will be large are in the lepton family, which in- Dr. Hohlmann’s and all everyone enough to put packages and lug- cludes electrons, however they are else’s is the detector technology. gage through. about 200 times as massive as an The others used old, bulky equip- Dr. Hohlmann would also electron. They fall to Earth as by- ment that makes deployment of like to bring others working on products of cosmic ray interactions this technology to places like air- similar projects here to Florida with the upper atmosphere. They ports (to scan luggage) or seaports Tech for a tomography workshop. can be detected using a variety of (to scan incoming cargo contain- He says there are teams at Los methods. HUV GLI¿FXOW'U+RKOPDQQXVHV Alamos and in Canada working The process Dr. Hohlmann a brand new technology called a on the same problem with different is using, muon tomography, is Gas Electron Multiplier, or GEM. technologies and approaches. not a new process. This process GEMs use a special copper-plated Dr. Hohlmann is also work- of using muons to scan through foil that has tiny holes, about 70 ing on the Compact Muon Sole- materials is a fairly simple pro- microns wide, etched into it chemi- noid on the Large Hadron collider cess. Since muons are always cally. A voltage is applied across at CERN. The next Campus Re- raining down onto the surface of the foil that creates powerful elec- search Report will have more on the Earth, have very high energy, WULF¿HOGVLQVLGHWKHKROHVZKLFK that topic. and can penetrate through materi- are also filled with gasses like als, they are ideal candidates for argon and carbon dioxide. When a Dr. Hohlmann’s pro- tomography. For an example array, muon passes through the detector, totype array. consider two detectors, on above it ionizes some of the gas atoms. Above, Dr. Hohlman’s another, and an object in between. The loose electron, accelerated by prototype 30cm by The top detector detects all the WKHHOHFWULF¿HOGJRHVRQWRLRQL]H 30cm tomography muons that are raining down. As other atoms and creates a kind of station. An iron target the muons pass through the object, avalanche. Once the “avalanche” rests inside WKH\FDQEHGHÀHFWHGE\WKHDWRPV reaches a threshold intensity, it (Image courtesy of Dr. of the material. The lower detector can be detected and read out. GEM Hohlmann). sees what muons made it through detectors are thin, only about 1 At left, Dr. Hohlmann unperturbed and what muons had centimeter in height, but can have and student Bryant been scattered. Using computers, any width. Dr. Hohlmann’s GEM Benson hold a GEM it is possible to use that data to as- detectors were assembled by his detector in front of the semble a model of what was inside team at CERN in Switzerland, but soon-to-be cubic foot the detector. they are now preparing to assemble station Muon tomography has been detectors here at Florida Tech in (Image courtesy of used in practical applications the future. Christopher Tew). before. In the 1960's, Dr. Luis Dr. Hohlmann’s current Walter Alvarez, a Nobel laureate prototype array is about 30 cm by